


The Golden Thread

by sam_ptarmigan



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Loss of Virginity, M/M, Sex Education, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-15
Updated: 2013-05-28
Packaged: 2017-11-29 09:40:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 35,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/685514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sam_ptarmigan/pseuds/sam_ptarmigan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When an unbetrothed dwarf comes of age, he braids a golden thread into his beard to signal that he seeks an older mentor to teach him the ways of love and sex. Balin soon discovers that his little brother doesn't trust anyone but him with the job.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the LJ hobbit_kink meme.

He could not say exactly when it began.

There were stranger things among dwarrows, after all, than falling in love with one's brother. Maids and matrons being so far and few between, it was common practice for two males of close blood to share a wife, and if the family's home had one marriage bed instead of two, that was nobody's business but their own. So it was that there was no thunderclap of surprise when Balin felt the first stirrings in his heart towards his only brother, and almost without his notice, one kind of love slowly grew into another.

He had missed much of Dwalin's youth. The gulf between their ages had been great then, with Balin a grown warrior and Dwalin not yet of fighting age when Erebor fell and their mother and father with it. Balin had gone into the world to sell his labour and his sword arm once Dwalin was safely settled with cousins, and reunions were happy but rare.

Balin came to cherish those memories during long, cold nights on the road. As he tended to his weapons, he would cast his mind back to the eager student who did not flinch from a sword, mace, or axe—or from bare-knuckle scrapping—and to his own proud pleasure the first time Dwalin knocked him off his feet. He took to keeping little prizes in the form of a warg's tooth or a crude goblin knife, not out of vanity, but for Dwalin to hold with wide, serious eyes as Balin wove him tales of his life abroad.

An ale or three drunk alone at a public house was not so bitter when mixed with the memory of taking his stripling of a brother out drinking for the very first time, and letting Dwalin quaff himself to miserable illness in order to find his limits, as was an elder brother's prerogative. Then, when a job would be done and Balin was parcelling up silver and copper to bring home to his kin, he would think of the presents he would buy: Dwalin's first set of chain mail, or a good dagger, or maybe a handsome bead for the handsome braid that would surely hang from his chin someday.

Perhaps, he thought, it began the first time he returned for a visit and discovered that his little brother had grown taller than him.

What had happened to the squalling, undersized babe that Balin had once held in his own small arms? Where was the gawky lad with stubble on his cheeks, puking in a ditch and swearing that ale came straight from the bladders of orcs?

Here was a broad-shouldered, nearly grown dwarf with only a little baby-roundness left in his face and a little coltishness in his limbs. His beard was still short, but it was coming in thick, and when he and Balin clasped arms fondly, it was with equal strength.

"By my beard," Balin murmured. "Look at you..."

Dwalin drew himself up even straighter, his chest puffing out. "You've shrunk, brother," he said slyly.

Balin snorted, but he was unable to keep the smile from his lips. "Aye, aye, you'll be a tall one. Don't let the fresh air go to your head."

"Then let me buy you a drink," Dwalin said with all the smug pleasure of a young dwarf with his own money to spend.

"You won't hear a word of argument from me."

The nearest drinking establishment was on the border of where the dwarven settlement met the town of men. It was hardly more than a shack with a dirt floor and stack of barrels filled with bad ale. The men kept to their side, and Balin's folk to their own. He and Dwalin claimed a corner table, and true to his word, he let Dwalin pay for the first two rounds.

"How long are you staying this time?" Dwalin asked.

It was not a new question, and Balin's answer was the same as it usually was. "A week, maybe two depending on the weather."

Dwalin frowned over his cup and then knocked back the rest of his drink.

"What's on your mind, brother?" Balin asked, seeing the heaviness of his brow.

Dwalin's chin jutted out with familiar stubbornness, and his eyes met Balin's in frank challenge. "I want to come with you."

This was not new either. Dwalin had been asking, begging, pleading to travel with him for as long as Balin had been leaving him behind. He had even followed him once, when he was quite young, mulishly marching after Balin and dragging an axe behind him. Balin had been forced to knock him out and carry him over-shoulder back to Auntie, and Dwalin had sworn he would never speak to him again—a vow which had lasted at least two torturous hours into Balin's next visit.

Now, however, Balin looked in assessment at the size of Dwalin's hands. He took measure of the strength in Dwalin's arms, and he noted with approval the way that Dwalin's gaze slid often to the men sat by the meagre fire whose raucousness suggested they would be first to start a scrap before the evening was out.

"All right," he said simply.

As though he hadn't heard him, Dwalin urgently pressed his case: "There's talk of raising an army to reclaim Moria. I mean to go when the time comes, and not with an unbloodied axe. I'll set out on my own if you don't—"

"I said all right, Dwalin."

Dwalin stopped short. His eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Aye?"

"Aye," Balin said, chuckling at the lad's surprise. "Not far and long, mind, but there are men enough within a few days' ride who will pay for an armed guard or post bounty for warg pelts."

The surprise in Dwalin's smile warmed him.

"Better with me than on your own, anyhow," Balin continued. "I won't laugh at you when you get your axe stuck in a tree on the backswing, and I might just pull your fat from the fire when you do something foolish."

Dwalin's smile turned to an indignant scowl, but Balin laughed it off and slapped him hard on the shoulder.

"Let me buy the next round, and I'll tell you about the time I had to fish my boot out of a dead goblin."

* * *

 

They left the tavern that night singing, their arms around each other's shoulders and their knuckles bruised from the brawl that the men by the fire had finally started.

"Orcs!" Dwalin declared, breaking off from the song. He spun around and addressed the sleeping town in a bellow: "I will slay a thousand orcs!"

Balin restrained his laugh. "You're the one who'll be slain if you stir these good folk from their beds," he chided, and he steered Dwalin towards the settlement just as someone opened their shutters and shouted down at them about the pestilence of drunken dwarves.

"Now be quiet," Balin warned his brother more firmly as they neared their cousins' makeshift home. Tents had been bolstered by posts and stalls until they were nearly cabins, strung together with laundry lines and tilting fences. "Auntie will have my stones if we wake up the house."

Dwalin snorted a laugh but was obligingly silent as Balin herded him inside, past their cousins' bed in the main room and back to the alcove that served as Dwalin's cavern.

"Lie down with me, brother," Dwalin murmured, reaching out as Balin lowered him to his blankets.

"All right," Balin said, not least because Dwalin had grasped him by the belt and the beard and it was not worth the fight of untangling himself. Besides, Dwalin's nest looked to be a more comfortable option than camping out under the table.

Balin worked in the small space afforded by the close walls and Dwalin's clasp to take off his boots and weapons, and then to pull off Dwalin's boots as well before lying down beside him.

Dwalin threw an arm around him and cuddled up like an overgrown hound who mistook himself for a lapdog. His hair tickled Balin's nose, and his ale-soaked breath left him in a sigh. He fidgeted and then stilled. Then he fidgeted again.

"Go to sleep," Balin said, trying to unwind Dwalin's fingers from his beard. They were creeping up alarmingly close to his chin.

"Y'won't go, will you?" Dwalin asked, his voice already slurring.

Balin managed to work Dwalin's grip down to a more seemly position. "I won't go."

Dwalin muttered something indistinct about orcs, and he nudged even closer, his hips pushing insistently against Balin's thigh. It took a moment to sort out amongst the tangle of legs, and the buckle on Dwalin's belt, and all manner of things that might have been in Dwalin's pockets, but eventually Balin came to the conclusion that his brother had a cock-stand.

His first reaction was frowning concern. Was the lad even old enough for such a thing? He was a few years off from his majority still, certainly, but then Balin supposed an early bloom wasn't unheard of. His second reaction, therefore, was tentatively mirthful. He recalled being only a little older than Dwalin, well-settled in his youth and expecting to come of age with quiet dignity, only to have the last hurdle of adulthood be the utter madness of his own passions.

Then Dwalin's fingers crept up his beard again and the humour of the situation fled.

"Balin?" His brother sounded a little more wakeful but no less drunk.

"Aye?" Balin asked carefully. There was a sudden tension in his stomach.

"D'you love me?"

The question was punctuated with another push of Dwalin's hips, and then Dwalin's hand was around his arm, warm and strong, and in the darkness it felt altogether too much like other drunken nights when he had stumbled to the bed of a friendly companion who was not his brother.

"Aye," Balin said, meaning it from his heart. "I love you. Even when you're as stupid as a spring ram."

Then he slid an arm under Dwalin, adjusted for leverage, and flipped his brother off him.

Dwalin landed on his front with a muffled groan of dismay. Balin rolled with him and pinned him firmly in a fraternal embrace. "Now it's time to go to sleep."

There was no argument, only an unhappy murmur followed by a moment of even unhappier wriggling that Balin could have done without. Eventually, however, Dwalin eased down and his breathing grew deeper. He muttered something about orcs again and soon began to snore.

Balin lay awake for a time with his head pillowed on Dwalin's back. Then he took the disquieting thought that was pacing back and forth in his mind, and he put it away, because that was the only sensible thing to do. He settled his arm more comfortably around Dwalin's middle, and then he too let sleep claim him.


	2. Chapter 2

The memory of his little brother's breath against his neck and fingers tangling in his beard returned to him often in the seasons to come—not when he was alone in a far-flung inn or sleeping rough on the road, but on those occasions when Dwalin travelled with him.

Fighting alongside his brother filled Balin with joy the likes of which he had never known. They blessed Dwalin's weapons early and often with the blood of goblins and brigands, and when they were outnumbered, they moved almost as one: war hammer and mace, axe and sword, with wordless messages sent across the fray through fierce smiles and almost invisible gestures. It was as though Balin's own shadow had taken up arms to join him in battle, and together, his and Dwalin's strength was more than doubled, and their victories with it.

After such exertions, they might wash the blood and goblin-stink from themselves in a nearby pool or chilly river. There, the thrumming of Balin's blood took its time in quieting when Dwalin insisted upon stealing glances at his naked body—conspicuous for their attempted covertness, when the two of them had certainly shared baths and steams a hundred times in Dwalin's younger days. Careful of his little brother's dignity, Balin affected not to notice when such glances lingered, just as he steadfastly pretended he didn't see Dwalin's cock occasionally rising. He himself made good use of cold water, wading in well past his waist as he gave great attention to the cleanliness of his beard. 

Later, Dwalin might wander from their camp or their lodgings with a grunted excuse and stay away long enough that Balin knew he was likely holed up somewhere private, pleasuring himself. This too he let pass without comment or teasing, feigning sleep or disinterest whenever Dwalin returned, and sometimes wiping off his own hand surreptitiously under the blankets. 

They had never spoken of what happened the night Dwalin had asked to lie with him. Unsubtle creature that his brother was, Balin could only assume that Dwalin had forgotten it entirely by the time the sun had risen the next morning. His own memory and tolerance for drink, however, were better than that. 

He sat up by the fire late one evening, keeping watch and idly puffing on his pipe. It was cold for late spring, and he wished he had a warmer cloak. Perhaps that was what made his attention slide to his sleeping brother. Dwalin lay on his back, bundled in blankets and snoring. He was a full head taller than Balin now and a little broader across. Here, the vivid recollection of what Dwalin's body had felt like atop his own returned to him, and he thought a little hungrily of how warm his brother's bedroll might be.

His throat tightened in a manner that had nothing to do with the smoke. It was longing, he decided, with more surprise than he should have felt. Not quite desire, but longing. 

Dwalin, perhaps sensing his gaze, stirred. His snores sharpened and then ceased, and then he came awake with a start.

"There's no trouble, brother," Balin said softly. "I must have been thinking too loudly."

After a suspicious glare about in all directions, Dwalin settled back down. "You'll wake me when it's my turn?" he asked, his eyes already closing heavily. "Don't let me oversleep again."

"I won't," Balin promised. "It's too cold to be noble."

He watched Dwalin fall back asleep and took another puff on his pipe, trying to decide if he envied his brother for having forgotten that drunken night. The depths of his longing were measured and probed, and its quality was inspected for the presence of regret or despair. No, he concluded. There was nothing but sweetness to this longing, and there was nothing but fondness for his impossible brother in the memory. He loved him, and he was not sorry he remembered—not on that night as he sat before the fire watching Dwalin sleep, and not for many nights to follow as they joined and parted, and as royal plans for a campaign to Khazad-dûm slowly took shape under Balin's cautious advisement.

He didn't regret it at all until nearly three years to the day after that clumsy beginning, when Dwalin finished his first considerable stretch of independent employment—two months guarding a rich merchant in one of the hill towns—and came back to him newly of age, with his hair shorn into a warrior's crest and a golden thread woven into his beard.

* * *

 

It took Balin some time to notice the adornment, so pleased was he to reunite with his brother in the crowded byways of the newest settlement camp. Dwalin stood well above the press, his surprising new rooster's comb topping the nearest head by several inches. 

"Ho!" Balin cried, waving to him. 

"Balin!" Dwalin cleared a path like a charging oliphaunt and clasped his shoulders.

Their brows bumped together, and they held the embrace as others elbowed and grumbled past them. The settlement at Kemp Town was only a few weeks old, sprung up hastily in the wake of their ejection from Molesworth, and all was chaos and sore tempers.

"What in the good earth have you done to your hair?"

Dwalin ran a hand over the crest. "You don't like it?"

It was a bold choice, that was for certain. Balin himself, like most, had never taken a blade to his hair or beard for anything less than the direst of circumstances. To have one's chin or crown forcibly shaved was the height of shame, and the warrior's crest was audacious and dauntless, almost to the point of belligerence. A warrior who did not fear being seen with the sides of his head bare would not fear much.

"Lean over," he said. "Let's have a better look, at least." He clucked his tongue when he saw the damage. "Did you do it yourself? It's all over crooked."

Dwalin's grumble suggested that he did in fact do it himself, possibly drunk, and at the very least without use of a reflective surface.

Balin sighed and took Dwalin by the arm. "Come," he said. "Let's find a place to sit, and I'll see what I can do."

He led his brother through the huddle of patched tents and half-unpacked wagons, their boots sticking in the mud churned up by too many feet and not enough stonework. He had set himself up at the edge of the settlement with the other warriors who had of late been scouting in the Misty Mountains at Thrain's behest.

"Have you eaten?" he asked and then, supposing the answer at Dwalin's age was always 'not enough', he found him an apple and some dried fish before sitting him down in front of one of the communal fires. 

He took out his best knife and stood behind Dwalin, inspecting the messy work. "You look like nothing less than a shaggy pony, I hope you know that."

Dwalin merely grunted and bit off half the apple just as Balin made his first angled scrape with the knife.

"Oh aye," Balin muttered. "Move about all you like, but you won't have my sympathy when I cut your ear off."

That was when the thread caught the light and Balin's eye. 

The gold glinted against Dwalin's beard, discreetly bound up in a six-strand bullwhip braid. Balin stared at it in dumb surprise for a moment, and then he nearly reached out and touched it before coming to his senses. Dwalin was a grown dwarf now, and Balin had no leave, even as a brother, to touch his beard without invitation.

He could not say why the sight of the thread shook him so. It was a tradition—a rather formal and old-fashioned one, surely, but still in wide practice. In another life, he might have expected someone like his brother to spurn it, but those who had been very young when Erebor was stolen seemed to cling to tradition far more tightly than Balin's own cohort. They learned Khuzdul and sign language with zeal and spoke it to each other in the presence of men, and they tied off their beards, and they cut their hair into crests.

Dwalin turned to look up at him, chewing the apple very slowly. There was something hard and almost expectant in his eyes, as if he were daring Balin to say something. What it was, however, Balin had no idea. 

He grasped Dwalin's ears turned him back to face the fire. "Stay still and let me finish."

It was not as though he objected, and he was not at all certain why—or if—his brother expected him to. He had braided the gold himself when he was Dwalin's age, silently announcing to all that he was an unbetrothed male open to an offer from an older male of appropriate rank who might wish to tutor him in the passionate crafts. He had chosen the sixth or seventh who had approached him, a casual friend of his father's, and they had spent the customary three days locked away in a comfortable bedchamber enjoying each other's company.

All in all, Balin reflected as he straightened out the sides of Dwalin's crest, it was a very civilised way of doing things. He had learned much from Furgil in that brief apprenticeship, which had given him the confidence to continue as a journeyman in a youth spent in and out of the beds of fellow dwarrows, and a few men of both varieties, and on one memorable occasion, an elf. 

Thus he could not quite put his finger on the source of his own hesitancy. What was there to make him unhappy? Dwalin was grown now, strong and canny, and he did not suffer fools. Perhaps, Balin thought, it was only that Dwalin had to come of age in a place like this. Where would his little brother first become a lover? In a tent, with neighbours crammed in, beard to beard and ear to ear, and dwarflings wandering in the street just steps away?

He sighed quietly as he brushed the little shavings of hair from Dwalin's head and then from his shoulders, careful not to touch in between.

"There," he said. "Very handsome."


	3. Chapter 3

The days to follow were oddly trying on his patience. The camp was disorganized and uncomfortably crowded as folk gathered about the few amenities that had been established. This meant little privacy for anyone, much less those temporarily idle warriors amongst them who had rallied themselves into work crews to install a central source of drinking water and dig more privies. Nonetheless, Dwalin still seemed to keep surprisingly close to him for someone who was meant to be catching the eye of an older dwarf.

Every time Balin turned around, there was Dwalin standing right behind him. If he paused in his work to catch his breath, here would come Dwalin with a dipper of water or ale for him. If he mucked in to clear a trench, Dwalin jumped in beside him, shovel or barrow at the ready. They took their meals together, and they queued up for the sorry attempt at a bath house together, and at night they shared a tent, their bedrolls close together by necessity of limited space, with Dwalin snoring in his ear and occasionally throwing an arm around him.

It wasn't that Balin minded. Moreover, he suspected he knew the cause. Plans for the march on Khazad-dûm were unfolding with more certainty now. He himself had scouted the orc stronghold with a small advance guard, and letters were being written and funds were being raised. With restraint, it would rightly be five years before they acted, and under Thrain's fervour it might more realistically be one or two, but it was clear to Balin that his brother had no intention of being left out of the venture and hoped to stay informed by planting himself within earshot.

Balin certainly didn't intend to exclude him, but this development meant that he was present to see every look of interest turned his brother's way. They were few but bold. Dwalin's size and reputation had obviously deterred all but the most hot-blooded and cocksure. Balin was forced to feign more than one oblivious smile as, by turn, Grunim, Gunar, and Baldal strutted by and caught Dwalin's eye, bestowing upon him significant glances that were barely decent for a public space. Oin took Dwalin aside at one point with a quick wink in Balin's direction, and Furgil, bless his pluck, made a play for a matching set.

Yet the thread remained where it was, and Dwalin's temper only seemed to sour as the days passed.

"Furgil's a fine one," Balin remarked as they sat in his tent one afternoon, idly playing dice for a pot of walnuts and berries and waiting out the rain in hopes of cooking hot food.

His brother hummed with a distinct lack of interest and then made his throw. The result made him bark in triumph as he scooped up the winning share.

"Very patient, Furgil," Balin added. "Keen sense of humour, too. I can certainly vouch for him."

The image of Furgil and his brother together wisped through his mind, not altogether unpleasantly. Furgil was still well-made and strapping despite a beard gone all to white. He could cleave a goblin in two with his axe, but his hands had been deft upon Balin's novice body during their three days and four nights together, and on a handful of occasions afterwards as well.

Dwalin paused and then glanced at him sharply. "What do you mean?"

Balin brazenly stole a berry from the pot and waggled his eyebrows. "Just what I said."

A sharp crack rang out, and for an instant Balin thought the downpour had turned to a thunderstorm. Then he saw the tight clench of Dwalin's hand and realised his brother had crushed a walnut in his fist.

Dwalin's face had gone very red all of a sudden, and he looked about with such indignation that Balin immediately felt abashed. Obviously his untried brother was a little less unruffled than he was at the thought of sharing a lover.

"Give over, Dwalin," he said mildly, reaching out and taking hold of his white-knuckled hand. "Your brother's not as old and ill-favoured as that. I will have you know, some even fancy me quite the catch."

He unfolded Dwalin's fingers, plucked the walnut meat from among the shards of shell, and promptly ate it with a smile that entreated forgiveness. "But let's consider that a 'no' on Furgil."

Dwalin glared at him, frustration plain on his features. His face remained flushed, but his hands eased. For a moment it looked as though he meant to reply, but he swallowed his words down into a grumble and picked up the dice again. Balin politely changed the subject to complaints about the rain as Dwalin took his next throw, and he reminded himself that his brother's business was just that: his brother's business.

Keeping his nose out of Dwalin's affairs was easier sworn than done, however. Everything became everyone's business as the rain continued in Kemp Town and tempers grew sodden and sullen. Brawls broke out in the street, and noisy arguments in more restrained quarters. The prevailing tone was one of weary anger. Why should they toil to make a life here when already there were rumblings from the men, who spoke of stolen livelihoods and dirty trades? What home could this be when the maids and matrons among them had to dress in trousers to keep from being objects of ridicule or rank curiosity to their new neighbours?

Dwalin continued to act like a bear with a thorn in his paw, and Balin continued in his bafflement. At least until the young prince Thorin returned from his business in the north and all seemed to come clear.

"Ah," he said aloud, quite to himself, when he saw them standing together under an awning just in front of the timber wall that separated the mass of tents from Thror and Thrain's lodgings.

Balin was across the thoroughfare and a fair distance down the muddy street, too far to glean anything of their conversation. He could see quite plainly, however, the scant distance between the young dwarrows' bodies and the intimate tilt of their heads. Thorin put his hand on Dwalin's elbow, and Balin felt as if he had been prodded in the gut.

"Oh," he said, rather more quietly this time.

Thorin was older than Dwalin, but hardly by enough for it to have occurred to Balin. Yet he remembered the importance even a few years presented when he was near their age, and he could have kicked himself for not realising sooner that his brother had braided the gold with a tutor already in mind.

No, Balin thought as that ache in his gut returned, not a tutor. A lover. All this time, he had been thinking of lust, and here his poor brother was quite possibly lovesick. No wonder he had been so ill-tempered. Love unrequited was enough to drive any dwarf to indigestion.

Balin picked his way closer, the rain dripping from his hood as he chose a strategic market stall. He flashed a smile at Mistress Holig and pretended to browse her under-stocked offerings of fruit while he kept an eye on the proceedings. His brother had not made the wisest choice, but Balin could understand his inclination. Thorin was hardly the worst of his line, and he and Dwalin had been bosom friends for years. The prince was a quiet, solemn young dwarf, and handsome enough: rather delicate in appearance, a fact not remedied by his admittedly admirable insistence on keeping his beard shorn in humility, but with an unmistakable iron to him.

He could not miss the way Thorin's gaze slipped down often to the glint of gold thread. Neither could he look away when Dwalin leaned in even closer for the two to exchange private words. They spoke for several moments, their eyes half-shut in the way of whispers. When they both drew back, Thorin looked...optimistic, perhaps. Certainly, the way he thumped Dwalin on the arm had an encouraging air. Dwalin, however, seemed worryingly disheartened.

What had put that long-suffering expression on his brother's face? An exhortation to be patient, perhaps—to wait a little longer? Not here, not now, but soon? It made a cheerless sort of sense. The sons of Fundin were cousins to the king, but Balin had always been grateful to descend from minor lines. The public eye and twin burdens of protocol and propriety were heavy loads to bear.

Dwalin squeezed Thorin's arm in turn, and then the two parted with reassuring nods. Balin opened up his purse and paid too much for a slightly mealy apple, which he passed to a little one in the street before hurrying off after his brother. Thorin may not have been the uncomplicated companion Balin would have chosen for him, but if Dwalin had set his heart, then Balin would have to do all he could to ease the way.


	4. Chapter 4

"Walk with me, brother," Balin said, catching up to Dwalin and clapping him on the arm.

Dwalin glanced at him, more cautiously than Balin would have liked, but his brow seemed to lighten. He slouched down, letting Balin put an arm around his shoulders, and together the two ambled away from the crowds, out towards the road and the woods.

"Are you as tired of the rain as I am?" Balin asked.

"If I say yes, will it stop?" Dwalin grumbled.

"In a roundabout way, perhaps." Balin steered them to the edge of the camp, where logging work had been temporarily halted. A large oilskin tent had been erected over the felled trees to keep them dry until the rain passed, and small hills of firewood had been bound and covered. 

Balin sat on one of the logs under the tent and smiled when Dwalin sat down beside him. 

"There is an inn," he confided, "only two hours down this road, or less on ponyback."

"An inn?" Dwalin asked, frowning.

"The Red Stag, it's called, and I'll sing you its praises. Fine food, good clean rooms, a merry landlord, and stout walls."

Dwalin still looked confused, but Balin obviously had his full attention.

"They hadn't seen many of our folk there last I visited, so the furniture and fixtures are too large by half. You're better off sitting plain on the hearth in the hall, but the breadth of the beds is well worth the climb."

"Big beds," Dwalin echoed. He nodded tentatively, a look first of hope and then of pleased relief spreading across his face.

"Just so," Balin said, happy that they were finally reading the same page. He sternly put a stop to any stray imaginings that threatened to linger in his mind of Dwalin and Thorin making use of a man-sized bed. "It's the very place for two fellows to spend a few quiet days away from prying eyes."

Dwalin's grin was the sweetest thing he had seen in a long time. Yet it faded abruptly, replaced anew by puzzlement when Balin took a small stack of coins from his purse and pressed it into his hand.

"Oh, I know," Balin said reassuringly, "all things considered, Thorin ought to be paying, but his money's his father's, and tradition can look the other way now and then."

"Thorin," Dwalin said blankly.

"Aye," Balin said, a touch of confusion tugging at his own voice, "Thorin."

"Thorin?" Dwalin said again—spat it, in fact—and then leapt to his feet with a half-choked bellow. " _Thorin?_ "

Balin blinked in surprise as Dwalin began unhappily pacing before him, tugging at his hair in agitation. "May I venture that there's another complication, then?"

"You're supposed to be the _clever_ one!" Dwalin growled, and the coins flew through the air at him. 

Balin dodged, but a piece of silver knocked him in the forehead nonetheless. "Pardon me," he said, rather more waspishly than he intended it, "but apparently I'm the one who knows nothing about anything and displeases you with everything I say and do!"

" _Yes!_ " Dwalin shouted, as though Balin had declared that water was wet and cows gave milk. Then he took two great strides away, hoisted a nearby log twice the height of himself and smashed it down against another with a roar of frustration the likes of which Balin remembered all too well from his own coming of age.

A great explosion of splinters erupted, and every bird in earshot immediately took flight. The sound was slow to fade, but Dwalin's heavy breathing thundered in the aftermath. Bits of wood littered the ground, and Dwalin hoisted the shattered log again as if to demolish the rest, but he let out a sound of great vexation instead and then dropped it. He clutched the back of his head in despair.

"Dwalin," Balin said, rising to his feet, "it isn't like you not to speak plainly. Do I need to break someone's head? Tell me, and I will. Do you need a message delivered, or a promise rescinded? Do you wish for me to go fall down a mine shaft and let you sort out your own arrangements? Only say it, brother."

Slowly, Dwalin straightened and turned to face him. He said nothing, but his mouth opened briefly as if he were trying to gather the words.

"If it's mine to give, you'll have it," Balin said, his voice softer now. "I don't wish to quarrel with you, not over something as silly as this. Tell me what you want."

Dwalin's mouth worked wordlessly again before finally spitting out: "I will kill Thorin."

"Treason," Balin remarked lightly. "But if it has to be done..."

Dwalin shot him a look that suggested he was not remotely funny. Then he reached for his belt and drew his knife, taking hold of his beard with the other hand. Balin started forward in instinctive horror, thinking for a mad moment that Dwalin meant to cut it off. The tip of the knife found only gold, however, and then Dwalin yanked the broken thread out, sending his braid into disarray.

"He said you would offer," Dwalin muttered, sounding aggrieved. He lurched forward and shoved the thread at Balin—shoved _him_ , clenched fist pushing angrily at Balin's shoulder—and his words came through gritted teeth. "Take it or don't. Stop making me guess. That's what I want."

Shock—though it blunted his thoughts—mercifully did not delay his actions. Balin's hand covered Dwalin's before it could retreat, and he held it tightly there against his shoulder.

"I won't yield to anyone else," Dwalin said, his voice low and fervent. His gaze was fixed upon their hands and his jaw was set stubbornly.

The words made Balin's chest tighten; how could they not, when he remembered his own naivety, and the nervous excitement that had made his hands shake, and the ignorant depths in which every joke and rumour he had ever heard in the bath house suddenly seemed at once ridiculous and perilously plausible. 

He thought of that night in Molesworth, as he had so often before. Yet as he curled his other hand around the back of Dwalin's neck and drew him closer, it was not the fumbling in the darkness that he remembered, but Dwalin's earnest expression across the tavern table. His brother had yearned to know the world and make a warrior of himself, and Balin had found nothing but joy in being his teacher, and he had promised never to laugh when his pupil set his axe astray, and he never had.

Dwalin's brow bumped gently against his own. Balin could feel the tension in his brother's frame: bones set like steel and muscles trembling. He squeezed the scruff of Dwalin's neck and turned Dwalin's hand beneath his own. Their fingers briefly entwined, and then Balin plucked the thread from his keeping.

All at once, Dwalin let out a long-held breath and grasped Balin around the waist. His embrace was urgent, nearly painful. He made a hungry sound in his throat and pushed against Balin beseechingly with his eyes pressed shut.

"Shhh," Balin soothed, standing his ground and letting Dwalin push. "It's all right."

He could have his brother right here, he realised with a delicious shiver. Here, now, his longing slaked under the cold rain. They were far enough from the centre of camp that they might just finish undisturbed, although he strongly suspected that they would not be quiet. It would not be gentle either, not with the way Dwalin shook against him. They would tear half their clothes off if they were lucky, the rest tangling around their limbs as they slipped on the wet grass and rutted like animals...

The clumsiness of Dwalin's clutching hands returned him soundly to the here and now. He swallowed hard and steadied himself, fighting down his desire to step back and let Dwalin tumble them both down to the ground. The sort of tryst that left its participants covered in mud and missing their socks was the advanced class, or at the very least intermediate, not the stuff of beginners. 

He caught Dwalin's wrists and held them. Dwalin's eyes flew open, half-dazed. 

Balin tapped his brow against Dwalin's. "If—" he began, and then he halted, his voice having come out rather more strained and breathless than he'd been prepared for. He cleared his throat and tried again. "If we leave now, we can make it to the Red Stag by dinnertime." 


	5. Chapter 5

Balin's definition of "now" was not entirely the same as his brother's. He found himself with an impatient presence a step and a half behind him as he returned to the camp to pack and leave word of their departure.

"Hurry up," Dwalin urged him, having retrieved nothing but his war hammer.

"You'll be glad soon enough that one of us is planning," Balin said mildly, sitting on the floor of his tent with an open bag and scattering of items before him.

Dwalin stood up with a huff. "I'm borrowing Thorin's ponies."

"You will do no such thing," Balin said, giving a half-full flask a considering slosh. "I'll be paying dearly enough at the inn. There's no sense in stabling ponies that will only sit idle."

"Then hurry up," Dwalin growled.

"Consider this your first lesson," Balin said, rolling up a blanket. "A little patience will serve you well. Two hours is a trifle."

"I was patient for over a _week_ ," Dwalin said, "and where did that get me?"

That found its mark. "I never said I wasn't a fool," Balin conceded, "but go on and bring the food in this basket to Ketil and his family—it will spoil before we're back—and go fetch yourself a change of socks and all the blade oil you can lay hands on. Then we'll away to the inn and I promise to show you something nice before the night is through."

Dwalin took the basket and left with haste, only to poke his head back through the tent flap ten seconds later.

"Blade oil?" he asked, his brow creased and his words precise, as if he suspected he had misheard.

Balin nodded encouragingly and drew his pack shut. "Blade oil," he said. "And hurry up."

They were on their way in good order, marching east along the main road towards the Red Stag, which stood midway between Kemp Town and the village of Barleigh. With his mace at his side and Dwalin carrying his war hammer strapped to his back, it felt akin to every other time they had set out together to slay foes and fill their purses. That alone eased the apprehension in Balin's belly, and he slipped easily into humming a travelling song that Dwalin absently echoed under the persistent tap of rain upon their hoods.

The journey passed quickly, due in large part to Dwalin walking with very long, swift strides. Balin nearly had to jog to keep up in places, and he might have teased his brother for his eagerness, but the sentiment was shared. He nearly sighed when the roof of the Red Stag came into view, with the cheerful sight of smoke rising from a pair of chimneys, promising warm rooms and hot food.

Balin took the lead as they entered, not entirely trusting Dwalin's manners under duress. The welcome aroma of ale and roasted fowl met him, and he hailed the landlord with a cheerful wave containing a glint of gold. The man hurried over to greet him, casting a brief and wary look at Dwalin, who stood a step back with crossed arms and an anxious scowl.

This would require a light touch. "Balin, at your service—why, yes, I do believe I have enjoyed your good hospitality before. Oh, it's still raining, I'm afraid. Might a room be available for my brother and me for the rest of the week? Wonderful! And two plates of that delicious chicken—ah, partridge? What a happy turn of events."

Preliminary coin exchanged hands, and he arranged for the landlord's daughter to set up a kettle for a hot bath. "Don't even think of lifting a bucket, my dear miss. Dwalin here will be happy to carry the water up. Step lively now, brother—help the girl."

Dwalin shot him a glaring look, but even he wasn't immune to the idea of a bath and roast dinner. He followed the girl into the kitchen, and when both were out of earshot, Balin took the landlord's elbow and drew him aside.

"A word in private, if you'll kindly indulge me?"

The landlord stepped aside with him to the foot of the stairs and leaned down to listen.

"I'd like to settle the bill upfront, if it suits you," Balin said. "Four nights, three meals a day taken privately with ale—additional food and drink paid for upon demand—a tub of cold water and kettle of hot in the evenings, ample firewood, no interruptions, and your generous patience regarding the noise."

Suspicion pinched the landlord's face, quickly replaced by cautious speculation when Balin removed a ring from his smallest finger and held it up. It was true gold with not a bad little ruby in it, and while he was loath to part with a relic of Erebor, it would at least buy a touch of the indulgence and privacy that would have been Dwalin's due had he come of age in happier times.

"What sort of noise?" the landlord asked, already reaching out for the ring and then halting. "You're not going to dig up the floor, are you?"

Balin smiled blandly, paused just long enough for the man to look a little embarrassed with himself, and then very pleasantly continued, "Ah, no. My brother is a touch poorly. Nothing contagious, of course, but there might be a little groaning and grumbling and thrashing about until his condition passes."

The landlord frowned as Dwalin proceeded past them, carrying a man-sized washtub full of water over his head. "He doesn't look poorly to me."

"He hides his pain well," Balin said.

The landlord bit his lip, his eyes returning to the ring. "He's not going to have a fit and smash up the place?"

Balin considered himself scrupulously honest, and as such had to admit to himself, with a certain amount of anticipatory pleasure, that breaking the bed was not out of the question. "I give you my word that nothing will be broken that can't be easily and affordably repaired."

That seemed good enough for the landlord, who carefully pocketed the ring and scribbled out a receipt and then took Balin to the cupboards to outfit him with extra blankets, a bar of soap, an oil lamp, and other niceties. By the time Balin was shown to his room, dinner and the bath were waiting. Dwalin was sat on the floor in front of the small fireplace, practically inhaling his food, and unless the landlady had grown significantly thriftier since the last time, Dwalin had stolen half of Balin's share of the partridge.

"Well?" Dwalin asked, his plate clean of all but the bones and his mouth still half-full.

Balin set down the provisions. "You can have the first bath."

Dwalin had obviously been living with wet feet long enough not to argue. He stood up and began undressing. Balin sat down nearby and took the other plate, picking at his meal as he enjoyed the view. His brother was fine to look upon: grown to full height and breadth, well-muscled and covered in thick, coarse hair that would put a bear to shame. He would never be short on admirers, Balin mused, imagining his brother drawing the eye of those who courted danger and those who sought the comfort of protective arms alike.

His own eye was drawn low as Dwalin shed his smallclothes. That too would have its admirers, he thought with some amusement. Dwalin's cock was in good proportion, and while Balin fancied he knew from experience that a larger endowment called for careful wielding, there were always those up for a challenge.

Balin waited until Dwalin had climbed into the ample tub and then tossed the soap to him. "Thoroughly, now. Behind your ears, too."

Dwalin scowled at him, but he set to scrubbing himself as Balin finished his dinner.

"Lovely fowl, this," Balin commented. "Shame about the scanty portions."

"You should have been quicker," Dwalin said, unrepentant.

Balin snorted. He nibbled the last bit of meat off his sole wing and finished his potatoes, and then he gathered up Dwalin's plate as well and set both outside in the hallway. Once back in the room, he latched the door behind him. His cloak, coat, and shirt joined the untidy pile of Dwalin's things, and he propped up his mace beside Dwalin's hammer.

Dwalin watched him raptly, his sudsy hand pausing fetchingly on his chest in mid-lather. Balin took a few things from his pack and set them on the tall bedside table. Then, taking his comb in hand, he came to stand behind the tub.

"Duck your head," he said, and Dwalin obeyed.

Balin could not help but smile as Dwalin's head lifted up again with its sodden crest drooping. He tended his brother's hair as he had not done for many years, running his fingers through the wet strands and then neatly combing them. The longer locks, he worked into a bed-braid and bound with a leather tie.

"Lean back," he said, his fingertips brushing at the bare skin of Dwalin's neck.

Dwalin's head tilted back and came to rest against his stomach. His eyes shut as Balin's fingers gently worked through his beard. Here, they were alike: abundant in beard, of the sort that would never braid neatly but would lie as hands shaped it. The comb loosened the tangles where Dwalin had worn the thread, working gradually up to his chin.

The water stirred as Dwalin fidgeted. His breathing was subtly heavier, and his cock slowly rose. He clutched at his own knees as Balin spread the locks of his beard and stroked his jaw.

"Are you ready?" Balin asked.

Dwalin nodded quickly, his eyes still shut.

He let his hands slip from Dwalin's beard and squeezed his shoulders. "On your feet."

Dwalin rose quickly, sending the water sloshing, and a hasty towelling ensued. Balin didn't dare let his hands linger lest he be carried away too soon. He rubbed Dwalin down briskly, mussing his crest and patting dry his beard.

"Now go lie down on the bed—make yourself comfortable. I'll be right there."

The timbers of the bed creaked softly as Dwalin climbed up, and Balin had to shut his eyes for a moment, imagining the sounds they could drive from it. Then he hurriedly undressed and got into the bath. He could feel the weight of Dwalin's hungry gaze upon him, and worse, he could glimpse from the corner of his sight each time that Dwalin's hand stole down to his cock for a stealthy fondle.

Nonetheless, Balin made proper use of the soap and scrubbed behind his ears and cleaned his fingernails. This was meant to be instructive as well as pleasurable, and while dirty spontaneity had its place, it was a good lesson for all young dwarrows that one should endeavour to come to a lover's bed as clean as circumstances allowed.

The grumbling urgency that Dwalin had pressed upon him at the camp had long faded now to watchful silence. Dwalin sat up against the headboard, still half-hard and touching himself only when he seemed to think Balin was not looking. There was something at once eager and reserved about his expression when Balin finally approached, drying himself off. Yet there was nothing at all hesitant in the way he reached for him, and Balin—with only the mildest and silent curses for the inconvenience of men's beds—threw the towel aside and hoisted himself up to fall gladly into his brother's embrace.


	6. Chapter 6

Furnace, stone, and steel wire—Dwalin seemed all three beneath him. His skin was ruddy and fever-hot, and his muscles were tense with need and nerves. His arms locked behind Balin's back, squeezing tightly enough to crush the breath from him, and his legs nearly scrabbled to wrap around Balin's hips in pure rutting instinct. 

"Softly, now," Balin advised him, though he leaned into the heat and strength of Dwalin's limbs with shameless desire. "Always softly at first, until you know otherwise. 'More' is prettier to hear than 'ouch', hm?"

Dwalin heaved a hard breath and reluctantly nodded. The clinch of his arms relaxed, if only slightly.

"Good," Balin said, pressing his cheek against Dwalin's. "Very good."

Soft by Dwalin's standards was still enough to bruise a less sturdy creature, but Balin could feel the uncertain restraint in his brother's hands as they slid across his back and clung to his sides. Balin was more than pleased to lead by example, rubbing Dwalin's shoulders and bumping noses fondly with him, letting him grow accustomed to the press of naked skin until he had calmed a little. Only then did Balin indulge himself, his hands spanning the planes of Dwalin's chest. His fingers slipped through the wealth of fur, grasping here and there in little tugs that drew soft sounds from his brother's throat.

Dwalin's firm stomach quivered under a caress. Balin gave him a little tickle, met by a huff and a glower. Then he watched Dwalin's face carefully and let his hand move lower.

" _Ah,_ " Dwalin visibly startled at the brush of Balin's fingers along the underside of his cock. There was nothing half-anything about it now. It stood to full length at the slightest caress, and when Balin took it in a sure grip, Dwalin's startlement turned to dazed pleasure.

Balin stroked him slowly, savouring the tense weight of it in his hand. Dwalin's eyes fell shut and his mouth opened. He was lovely in his pleasure, just how Balin might have imagined him if he had ever allowed his wandering thoughts to wander quite so far. 

"Now, I seem to remember," Balin murmured, "promising to show you something nice."

"Aye," Dwalin said breathlessly. He was frowning slightly, as though it took great effort to remember, or perhaps even to speak. His cock was flushed dark, and he was nearly trembling now. He would not last long.

"Ease back," Balin said, and when Dwalin let go of him with a ragged breath, he lowered himself down and wet his lips.

The first touch of his mouth upon Dwalin's cock brought nothing but stunned silence. Balin licked at the clear dribble that had gathered at the tip, and then he drew in near half of Dwalin's cock with a soft, relishing hum. 

A low sound rumbled in Dwalin's chest before he grabbed at Balin's shoulders with a string of curses that Balin properly should have clouted him on the ear for. No, he didn't last long, not at all—two, three good wet sucks, and then his grip nearly ground the bones in Balin's shoulders and a hot, bitter spill filled Balin's mouth. 

Balin shut his eyes, savouring the passion of it as the heat in his belly grew. He let his lips and tongue linger, seeking the full spending and letting all he was given slip down his throat.

When Balin finally looked up again, Dwalin's gaze was fixed on the ceiling. He was shivering, red with embarrassment. He glanced sharply down at his own cock for just an instant, as if incredulous at the thought that Balin had indeed just swallowed his come. Then his mouth tightened and his jaw clenched and he stared up at the ceiling once more.

"That," Balin said smoothly, absently licking his lips, "is what is called taking the edge off. Very important."

There was a very long pause. Dwalin's gaze flicked back to him uncertainly. "It was supposed to last longer." 

It was half a question, for all that Dwalin's voice was shaky and defensive. Balin rose and gave him an affectionate tap on the brow. He was torn between reassurance and truth, and he settled on diplomacy. "It's a little nicer to take one's time, yes."

A familiar stubbornness crept into Dwalin's tone. "I'll do better."

Balin smiled. "You will," he said, with not a drop of doubt as he wrapped his arms around Dwalin's shoulders and put his faith in the restorative powers of youth. "Now let's try that again, shall we?"

Dwalin hardly even softened, the rutty stag, but his first spending had blunted his desperation. He still refused to let Balin out of his grasp, but he seemed to discover soon enough that his hands were good for more than holding on. His touch was endearingly careful and his brow furrowed in concentration as he stroked Balin's back and shoulders and arms. The last captured his full attention, his hold pausing firmly on Balin's biceps and a soft, admiring growl escaping him as Balin's muscles flexed.

Balin was no unforged stripling, and yet he found himself helplessly seduced by these half-innocent caresses. The slow-burning fire within him flared as Dwalin rubbed his beard between thumb and finger, and again at the hesitant descent of Dwalin's rough palms along his chest.

"Can I touch you?" Dwalin asked in a hush. The back of his hand trailed uncertainly over Balin's stomach.

"Yes," Balin said, and the word came out a tad more fervently than he had intended.

It was only fingertips at first, tracing the length of him. His cock rose rather quickly, swelling from heavy to stiff. Dwalin's fingers wrapped around him in a loose, awkward grip and gave a clumsy pull. Dwalin frowned and then readjusted, accounting for the whole business of doing it from the opposite way around. The second attempt was far more certain.

"Good," Balin murmured, his next breath coming heavier than the last. "Just like that..."

He reached for Dwalin in turn, watching his face for any sign that he was still too tender. His own days of recovering within minutes were long behind him, but Dwalin only moaned and pushed eagerly into his hand. Their knuckles bumped, and there was nothing graceful in the way they drove into each other's embrace, listing like drunkards in an attempt to get just a little nearer, just a little more...

Balin felt his control fray alarmingly, rope beneath a blade. It had been years since he was ready to go off with no more than a few tugs, but he was very nearly undone by the pull of fingers tangling in his hair and the glance of damp skin when their parts brushed against each other. He bit lightly in the places where dwarrows bit and men and elves liked a softer mouth, tasting the faint salt tang of Dwalin's skin, and then bit harder as Dwalin gasped his pleasure.

"That—" Dwalin said, his hand tightening around Balin's cock, "—do that again?"

"There's such a word as please," Balin admonished, but he angled to bite at Dwalin's left pap again, and then the right.

Dwalin gave a hard jerk and a low cry. There was something sweetly surprised in his tone, and Balin could not resist seeking it again, sucking hard at each pap and then drawing back to admire his red, swollen handiwork. 

"Hand or mouth?" he asked rather breathlessly, feeling Dwalin's cock throb in his fist.

"What?" Dwalin's own strokes faltered, growing uneven as Balin blew softly across his wet paps.

"You're going to come off soon," Balin said, attempting to sound as though he weren't in nearly as precarious a state. "Are you going to do it in my hand, or would you like my mouth again?"

Dwalin's face screwed up all at once as though the words themselves were going to decide the matter in favour of Balin's hand. Balin eased his grip, however, and after a tense moment, Dwalin managed to reply:

"Mouth. Please."

Balin was only too happy to avail himself, wetting his lips as he pressed Dwalin down. "Breathe," he said. "The longer you can wait, the nicer it will feel."

He merely tasted at first, licking at the new glistening smears of clear spending and mouthing from stones to tip. Dwalin's chest rose and fell dramatically, and his hips thrust up hard as his fingers tangled entreatingly in Balin's beard. 

"I don't think I have to tell you," Balin murmured, pushing him back down, "that shoving yourself down my throat won't make me very happy."

A muttered apology might have lurked somewhere in the noises that followed, but Balin only had ears for the short, brusque moans that came out with every breath as he sucked Dwalin's cock. Those little sounds pulled at him, making his body tense and his skin prickle. There it was again, that air of surprise—in each of those cries, and in the way Dwalin's brows rose as his eyes shut—as though he were taken entirely unaware by the realisation that his body could give him so much pleasure. Balin sucked him deep and slow, breathing in the scent that was at once familiar and deliciously new, nearly dizzy on it and feeling his fire throw sparks again. 

"Cannae—" Dwalin groaned soon enough, panting.

The tight, pleading sound of it drove Balin's hand beneath himself, and he stroked himself in hurried surrender as Dwalin came in his mouth. Dwalin's spending seemed hardly diminished for all that it was a second round, and Balin was shaken by a deep shiver as he was clutched and held, his mouth filled again and his own seed spilling over his fingers. 

"Oh," Dwalin was faintly saying, his fingers combing restlessly through Balin's beard and his stomach quivering. "Oh..."

Balin lingered there until both their peaks were well past them, and then he let Dwalin slip and knelt up to look upon him. It was a handsome sight: Dwalin thoroughly flushed, melting to limpness and distinctly glassy of eye. Balin stroked his brow tenderly, smoothing back his sweat-damp crest.

Dwalin reached for him and seemed befuddled to find him spent. "Oh," he said yet again. "I would have..." 

"Next time," Balin promised, not a little embarrassed at having got away from himself. He made to stand, but Dwalin sat up indignantly and caught him by the arm. 

"Where are you going?"

"Hush," Balin said, unclasping Dwalin's hand and patting him soothingly. "I'll only be a moment."

He retrieved the washcloth he'd left at the bedside and climbed down from the bed to dip the cloth in the washtub. A few quick swipes saw his spending cleaned up, and then he returned to get the spatters he'd left on Dwalin's thigh.

"Always clean up your messes," he said, laying the cloth aside and getting back on the bed, where he considered Dwalin's heavy eyelids and then reconsidered the odds of being able to shift the counterpane out from underneath him. He unrolled the spare blanket instead and pulled it over both of them. "I once nearly skinned myself getting unstuck from—well, never you mind who, but I had a two-inch bald strip down my belly for weeks."

Dwalin hummed faintly as if he were listening, but he seemed already drifting into sleep as he flopped over to cuddle up. "Balin..." he murmured warmly, his nose buried in Balin's beard and his arm tight around him.

The sturdy weight sank Balin firmly into the mattress. He knew he would have a dead arm by morning, but he did not have the heart to budge him. Instead, pleased in a way he had not been for some time and feeling full near to bursting with affection, he lay there in contentment and rubbed Dwalin's back in slow circles until great rumbling snores echoed through him and lulled him to follow.


	7. Chapter 7

Balin surfaced from sleep in the very early morning to a warm and pleasant sensation. He drifted in between dreams and waking for a long and lovely while, and then the sensation sharpened rather less pleasantly and he came to full senses with a quiet hiss. He reached down, patting blindly.

"Mf," he muttered when he touched the top of Dwalin's head. "Mind your teeth."

The disagreeable edge retreated, and he opened his eyes, peering in the muted grey light at the sight of Dwalin hunched over him. He could only just make out the intent set of Dwalin's brow, but his floundering was clear in the too-wet slide of his mouth and the ponderous lack of rhythm. Balin, still sleep-heavy, might have been content to lie still and let Dwalin fumble with him, but when Dwalin pushed on and sputtered, choking, he was not so ambivalent.

He pulled at Dwalin's arm. "Stop that, now. Budge up—on your side, that's it." He patted his belly. "Lay your head down."

Dwalin did so stiffly, but he seemed in much better spirits when it became apparent that his new position meant Balin could reach down and stroke him. His breath tickled enticingly at Balin's cock, and then he inched forward, his lips hot and wet and his whiskers agreeably soft. 

"Just the top, that's all that matters," Balin murmured encouragingly. "Now give the rest a rub..."

His eyes fell shut again in sleepy pleasure as Dwalin stroked him firmly and sucked on the head of his cock. He teasingly toyed with Dwalin's cock in turn, easing off now and then to caress Dwalin's belly and chest when circumstances seemed too urgent. The sun was slow to reveal the morning behind the thick layer of clouds, and the room stayed coolly dark, inviting a leisurely lie-in even when small noises of industry rose up from the kitchen some time later. Rain continued to fall, a cosier sound by far when it was tapping on a roof and a window. 

"Lovely," Balin said with a hum, tracing the shell of Dwalin's ear. He let his fingertip wander along the edge of Dwalin's beard, brushing over the juncture where Dwalin's lips wrapped around his cock.

Dwalin muttered something in return, the words unintelligible but vibrating nicely.

"Don't talk with your mouth full, brother," Balin lazily chided. He moved his hand back down to Dwalin's cock, guessing at the request. To his surprise, however, Dwalin stopped what he was doing and grabbed Balin's wrist.

Balin's hand was led back to Dwalin's beard, where he tangled his fingers in its locks. Dwalin was still for a moment, something taut in the line of his shoulders and an unspoken question in the air. Then he wrapped his hand around Balin's and drew it down in a firm tug. 

"Ah," Balin said, understanding dawning. He tried to keep the amusement from his voice, which became rather easier when he pictured Dwalin's solitary discovery of the act—hidden away on some lonesome night, perhaps, one hand fisted around his cock and the other pulling urgently on his beard. "A perfectly normal practice."

Dwalin relaxed at that and then took Balin back in hand and mouth, humming a little as Balin pulled again at his beard.

"Always start slowly here too," Balin said, the pleasure warm in his voice as his fingers wound Dwalin's beard tight. "It's wise not to pull suddenly on anything when someone has your cock in their mouth."

He expected a chuckle, but Dwalin made a small, rough sound, and his hips jerked. Salty talk could make even his indelicate brother a little red in the face, it seemed. He touched the hot flush at Dwalin's cheekbone and then pulled again at his beard.

"I've yet to meet a dwarf who doesn't like a good tug," he said, lightly drawing his nails over Dwalin's chin and watching with interest as Dwalin's hips jerked again. "You'll want to ask with men, though, even when they've got enough to grab."

Dwalin lifted his head sharply, letting Balin slip from his mouth. "When have you bedded a man?" 

Had his tone note not been so indignant, Balin might have answered. Instead, he took hold of Dwalin's cock again and gave him a vigorous stroking that seemed to momentarily rattle such thoughts from his head. Dwalin moaned, a deep and rumbling affair, and returned to mouthing at him.

"Oh..." Balin found himself swallowing hard as heat began slowly rolling through him with every draw of Dwalin's lips. He gathered up a great fistful of Dwalin's beard and twisted. "A little faster..."

Dwalin made a low and hungry sound as Balin tugged, and his strokes sped up. His mouth was insistent, sucking harder now, his tongue doing a marvellous bit of improvisation. 

"Now, ah..." Balin fought against the urge to babble, his words tripping a little as his stones drew up and his breathing came out in a rush. "...you're not at all obliged to swallow, but if you're going to spit, it's best to have a handkerchief at the ready, or...mm...put it in your hand, but don't go dribbling come on a lover unless they like that sort of thing. Me, now, I'm not fussy either way—a bit of spunk's a bit of spunk—but it's not a good habit to get into—"

He was cut off by a wretched growl that hummed around him, and the bed creaked as Dwalin was jolted by a tell-tale surge and shake. A spurt of his spending caught Balin on the hand and on the hip, and that was more than enough to drive forth an involuntary cry from him and snatch away the last of his self-possession.

Dwalin, it seemed, decided against spitting. There was a faint grunt of surprise as Balin spilled in his mouth, and then Balin could feel the slide of his own seed between his cock and Dwalin's tongue. His fingers slipped behind Dwalin's beard, pressing to the naked skin of his throat, and he felt the bobbing of a hard swallow.

"Oh, nicely done," he murmured, his eyes pressing tightly shut as he rode out the wave of it. "Oh, very fine indeed."

It was a little while before Dwalin drew back. Balin could hear the faint, wet sounds that accompanied the consideration of one's own mouth. "You taste salty."

There was an odd pause at the end of the word, as though he had perhaps been about to say "saltier" before realising he was admitting to having tasted his own come. 

"Aye," Balin said, idly stroking Dwalin's hair. "Saltier than some."

"Hm." Dwalin had obviously taken Balin's lesson about messes to heart, although he didn't seem willing to reach any farther than the blanket for something to tidy them up with. 

"You've a little in your beard," Balin pointed out politely. "You'll need a proper wash."

Dwalin's shoulders hunched in embarrassment, and a moment later he lay his head back down upon Balin's belly with a disgruntled sound. "I would have lasted if you didn't _say things_."

"I shall endeavour not to say things," Balin said, combing Dwalin's crest with his fingers. Then, because he could not resist, he added, "Just to clarify, that would be things like 'cock'?"

He let out an 'oof' as Dwalin elbowed him hard in the side, and then he chuckled and tousled Dwalin's hair. It was a sign of no grudge held that Dwalin lay with him for several minutes, even as the aroma of bread and bacon began to drift up from the kitchen, before finally rolling off and rising with a curmurring stomach to scrub up for breakfast.


	8. Chapter 8

As Balin understood it, the first lessons in the passionate crafts could take a dwarf strangely. He himself recalled vividly a period of deep melancholy that had swallowed him up on his third day with Furgil. In hindsight, it was likely a matter of too much pleasure and ale and far too little hearty food, but he had lain still for an hour or more on their pile of furs, bruised nearly to grief inside despite no unkind word or deed having been offered, and Furgil had sat beside him, not touching him save to braid his hair, as if he understood. 

Over the years, he had collected second-hand tales. One of his lovers claimed his teeth had chattered so violently his first time, despite lying in front of a great fire, that he'd thought he was having a fit. Another had reminisced with sheepish humour about nearly putting his tutor off by laughing uncontrollably from first kiss to last thrust.  

In the morning and afternoon that followed, it became apparent that Dwalin intended simply to be more himself than Balin had seen him in a very long time. He refused to put his clothes back on for anything less than his brief trips outside the room, and he had taken to walking with a rather smug swagger. He was shameless in his appetite for touch, not content to be an inch away when he could be sprawled across Balin like a bearskin rug with the bear still in it, and he proved rapacious for the intimacies they had practiced. 

The long, idle naps in the big rumpled bed inevitably turned to Dwalin frotting against Balin's thigh and bumping noses with him, and Balin found he could not easily deny him anything. He was happy enough to be the one to put on shirt and boots and trousers in order to fetch them both more food and ale. He was the one to haul the washtub back down to be emptied and refilled, and the one to bear the landlord's baffled looks and the landlady's all too knowing ones.

He was also happy enough to generously bring Dwalin off twice more before teatime: once with his hands, teasing Dwalin out to the lofty length of six minutes, and once with his mouth, during which he demonstrated the proper application of teeth to sturdy dwarven parts and made Dwalin roar so loudly that the window rattled. 

Later, as the afternoon light started to fade and Dwalin finally seemed to agree that he could let go of Balin without putting the prospect of future spendings in jeopardy, Balin took out some of the make-work he had packed and the two settled in before the fire. Dwalin industriously set to cleaning a pair of gauntlets, and Balin worked on embroidering the new strap for his pack. It was a little easier this way to speak of practicalities, even with Dwalin still naked and looking like he should be etched in silver on a tribute cup. They each kept their eyes on their work as Balin spoke frankly on the matter of the pox, and of cleanliness, and of the siring of dwarflings.

It might have appeared that Dwalin wasn't listening, his gaze fixed to the gauntlets as it was, but in a present lull in the lecture, he nodded seriously and then asked: "Have you ever lain with a maid?"

Balin tied off a knot and cut the thread. "One of our folk? No. A few women, though."

Dwalin glanced at him for an instant, his eyes narrowed. Then he returned to studiously polishing a cuff. "Are they different?"

"Dwarf maids to women, or ladies from us?"

Dwalin paused as though he had not considered one of these questions. "Both."

He shook his head. "Women are to our maids and matrons as men are to you and me—a bit taller and a bit balder, that's all."

"And from us? Is it different...being with them?"

Balin gave that serious thought as he re-threaded his needle, and then he shook his head. "Bed-play is bed-play."

It was precisely the sort of philosophical platitude crafted to make his brother snort in dissatisfaction. 

Balin smiled. "They differ a little in form, of course. Their bosom is softer, and they have a part like ours but much smaller, near-hidden, and they have their own furrow for planting and sowing. In practice, however, it's much the same. Hands or mouths, or penetration if one wishes. Whatever both would like to do."

"So when two..." Here, Dwalin peered very hard at the gauntlet as if staring down his reflection. "...it's the one most like a maid who yields."

He clucked his tongue. Now he knew what sort of bath house talk Dwalin had been listening to. "Don't be ridiculous. Ladies aren't ladies because they yield. They're ladies because they're ladies, and if a gentleman dwarf is to be like a lady, his preferences as to yielding have nothing to do with it."

Dwalin looked at him sceptically. "It's how dogs do it. They mount each other to show who's stronger."

"Are we dogs?" Balin asked. "I hadn't noticed."

Silence held for a moment. A squeak followed as Dwalin's polishing cloth dragged hard across steel. Then another stretch of silence followed before Dwalin asked: "So you would yield to me?"

It held such a tone of sullen challenge that Balin was hard-pressed not to laugh aloud. He pricked his thumb with his needle to avoid it. 

"Of course," he said and pretended with great conviction not to see it when Dwalin dropped a gauntlet in surprise. "At least when you can last long enough to make it worth my while."

Dwalin's cheeks went red, and the careful repositioning of his arm a moment later suggested he was trying to hide the beginnings of a cock-stand.

"Mind you," Balin continued, his own interest rising, "it's best to yield the first time. You'll be more thoughtful if you know what it feels like."

He was satisfied to see that there was no hesitation or mistrust, only a tentative sort of speculation as Dwalin glanced towards the bed and then back at him. Then Dwalin tossed the other gauntlet aside, where it hit the floor with a careless clang.

"Careful with those," Balin admonished, but Dwalin was already seizing him by the arm and pulling him back to bed.

Balin dug in his heels long enough to retrieve one of the flasks of blade oil from his pack. It earned him a restless grumble, but the expression on Dwalin's face was entirely worth the wait when he finally put two and two together.

"Oh," Dwalin said as if a great secret had been revealed to him.

"Very versatile stuff, blade oil," Balin declared, and then he let himself be hauled onto the bed by the waist of his trousers. He landed on his back, pushed down and quickly divested of said trousers.

The first flicker of uncertainty appeared as Dwalin made to turn over and then halted, seemingly unsure as to what he was supposed to do with himself. Balin, who had been convinced that you could only tup a fellow on all fours until the moment Furgil had hoisted him up by the ankles, had mercy and took the lead. He lay down on his side and drew Dwalin down firmly to face him.

"Pay attention," he said, fingers curling in the hair upon Dwalin's chest.

"I know," Dwalin said with all the impatient confidence of the second-day student. "Slowly. Softly."

"You have ears. Well done." He stroked one of the ears in question and then softly bit Dwalin's collarbone. "So pay attention. Tupping is a full meal, not just a snack. You have to be hungry for it."

"I'm always hungry," Dwalin replied, pushing against him. He was indeed already at full length, the glutton.

"There's hungry and then there's hungry," Balin said, unsure he could put into words that particular appetite, even as it stirred inside him. "Crashing through the door and getting down to it as soon as you've torn off your trousers and grabbed a dollop of something slick is all well and good..."

Dwalin growled, his hand curling hard around Balin's hip.

"... _very_ well and good," Balin had to concede, "but more often than not, it takes some preparation, and it's all for the better if you enjoy the stoking as much as the fire."

Eager though he seemed to press on, Dwalin proved not at all averse to a little stoking if it meant tussling and teeth. They proceeded quickly past ‘softly’, and it was with equal measures of pleasure and pride that Balin benefited from the growing skill in Dwalin's hands. The novice, grasping clumsiness had faded, leaving only bold attention as Dwalin stroked his arms and thighs and chest, shaping each muscle before tugging at any thatch of hair he could wind his fingers through and nipping sharply at Balin's ear.

"You," Balin said, scratching at Dwalin's chin and then parting his beard to bite at his throat, "are going to be dangerous."

Dwalin moaned, the hum of it vibrating against Balin's lips. "Is that good?"

"Very much so," Balin said, reaching for the flask. He considered stopping to find something to lay down so they wouldn't leave the sheets full of oil-stains, but he wasn't inclined to move when Dwalin was nudging him back so he could get his mouth on his paps. Besides, he strongly suspected the bedding was going to be burned as soon as they were gone, and he'd paid more than enough to replace it.

Darts of heat through him as Dwalin sucked at his paps, pulling at them with lips and teeth until they tingled. Balin's breath momentarily left him, and his cock gave a hard jerk. Dwalin bestowed another deep bite upon each pap and then drew back, examining the red half-moons he had left around them with hot-eyed interest.

"Again?" Dwalin asked, his gaze flicking up.

"If you please," Balin said, his voice rough and his fingers tangling in Dwalin's hair.

Dwalin set to work with a will, sucking Balin's paps raw. The thought of teasing didn't seem to occur to him; how could it when he was still thirsting for every touch and new to the thought of a lifetime of bed-play ahead of him? He gave no less than all he had, licking and biting until Balin was gasping. The ache of it spread through him, making his cock throb and his fingers wind tight in Dwalin's hair, tugging him back when it threatened to be too much, the well-worried red of his paps rivalled only by Dwalin's swollen mouth.

"Hold out your hand," Balin said.

Dwalin did so without pause, and Balin unstopped the flask and tipped a good glug of oil into his palm. He'd always found the smell of blade oil uniquely reassuring. It meant the peaceful lull between bloodyings, sat before the warmth of a campfire or a cosy hearth, with nothing but the glint of steel and weight of one's weapon to ponder—or, if one was lucky, a friendly comrade to ponder as well.

He took Dwalin by the wrist and drew his hand down, sighing as Dwalin's fingers wrapped around him in an oily-handed stroke. 

"Everything ought to be nice and slippery," he said. "You'd be hard-pressed to use too much oil when it comes to tupping."

He tipped some more oil into his own hand and gave Dwalin a leisurely rub too, watching his expression turn pleasure-hazed at the frictionless caress.

"Slippery's nice," Dwalin breathed, thrusting up into the slick grip of Balin's fist. 

"Slippery is very nice," Balin agreed, getting his other hand oiled as well and making a fine mess as he lavished unctuous attention all over Dwalin's cock, and over his stones, and along the taut skin behind them. 

Dwalin's eyelids drooped, and he shifted obligingly, letting Balin's hand wander wherever it wished. A moment's tension accompanied the first slide of Balin's fingers over his cleft, but he relaxed soon enough with a faint, considering frown. 

"Plenty of oil," Balin said, merely rubbing back and forth with a light touch, "and slowly. If you think you're wasting oil, you're using just enough."

The low sound that rumbled in Dwalin's chest might have been a sign he was taking heed, or it might have been a soft crowing at his own brilliance, as at that moment he figured out that he could take both Balin's cock and his own in hand and stroke them together. 

"Oh, that's lovely," Balin murmured, fingers moving in time with Dwalin's slow pulls. 

The muscle slowly eased beneath his touch, and Balin reached for more oil, getting good and slippery again before he rubbed a little more and then pushed. For all his worries about yielding, Dwalin did so beautifully, opening for the measured press of Balin's finger with a slow blink. Balin eased in to the knuckle and then exerted a little pressure on the way down, seeking that pebble...

Dwalin's breath caught sharply. His eyes sought Balin's, both pleasure and a question there. 

"Perfectly common, in a rather splendid way," Balin said, stroking it again. "All males have it, some more sensitive than others."

It soon became apparent that he and Dwalin had the "more" in common. Dwalin's eyes shut tightly and his cock throbbed against Balin's as he was slowly fingered. A bit more oil, and one finger became two. There was only a little resistance, passing quickly, and then Dwalin moaned—an indisputably greedy sound that seemed to surprise even himself. 

"See?" Balin asked softly. 

"Aye..." Dwalin's hand tightened around them both as he gave a great shiver.

Balin would have been content to do no more than this. The fact that fingers were lovely things on their own was a worthy lesson, and he could have easily found his spending just watching Dwalin's expression of half-disbelieving pleasure. His brother was pure stubborn stone, immovable under most circumstances, but here he was undoubtedly flesh beneath Balin's hands, back and hips and thighs moving at the smallest push of Balin's fingers, and his breath coming hard, and the salty musk of his scent mingling with the mineral aroma of the blade oil.

"Do the next part," Dwalin murmured urgently. 

"Pardon?" Balin asked, hardly able to make out the words among Dwalin's heavy breathing. 

"Whatever comes next, before the tupping. Hurry up and do it."

Balin teased the pebble again, making Dwalin thrust heavily against him. "As it happens, the tupping comes next."

There was a pause.

"Even better," Dwalin said.

That did away with any thought of contenting himself with a nice slow frot and fingering. His mouth ran dry and his hips gave a small, involuntary push of their own as he thought of how to best proceed. Dwalin really was unreasonably tall, and long in the thigh besides, and the entanglements Balin liked best—those meant for _deep_ and _hard_ and oft-times _hammering_ —weren't necessarily the careful choice for one's first time.

He withdrew his fingers slowly, pausing to rub a little wickedly to make Dwalin squirm.

"On your other side," he said. "There we go."

Dwalin rolled over with a certain reluctance, although that seemed to be in protest of the fact that they could no longer rub off against each other. He looked over his shoulder, his expression some middle ground between aroused and impatient and curious. The glinting smears of oil against his skin were one of the loveliest things Balin had ever seen.

"Nudge your leg up, now." He poured generously from the flask, coating his fingers until they were dripping.

Dwalin opened up for it with ease and a hard breath out. His body grasped at Balin's fingers as they slowly twisted, spreading the oil around, and he made a low sound of protest when they withdrew.

The flask was upended, every last drop that Balin could shake out pooling into his palm. He smoothed it over his cock, pausing to give himself a good pinch to take the edge off his ardour. He pressed against Dwalin's back, the two of them fitting together like a pair of mismatched spoons, after a brief negotiation of knees and elbows. 

This position had its appeal. His fingertips trailed down Dwalin's chest, and his cock slid deliciously along Dwalin's slippery cleft with every nudge of his hips. After a breathless moment, Dwalin fidgeted in his arms, pushing back against him with a demanding air.

Slowly—this time it was Balin who needed the lesson. It took all his reason to move at half speed and full care, announcing every act in the deliberate motions of his hands. He played with Dwalin's paps, rolling them between oily fingertips, and he stroked his stomach soothingly, and he gave Dwalin's cock a teasing rub before finally settling a hand on his hip. 

His thumb dug in, spreading Dwalin wider. Slowly, slowly, he exerted a little pressure.

" _Oh_." Dwalin went still, save for where Balin pressed. His hole twitched, hot and slick against the head of Balin's cock.

Balin might not have had the height of his brother, but he was not meanly proportioned. He was accustomed to a little necessary delay, and it was sweet torture to move by fractions of an inch, insisting on just a little more and then easing back, pausing every time Dwalin tightened around him.

Dwalin's breathing grew rougher, and he wound a fistful of blankets around his hand in a restless, wanting pull. "That's..."

"Good or bad?" Balin asked quietly, stopping, hoping the strain didn't show so baldly in his voice and in the tremor in his thighs. He remembered that feeling, the first stupefying stretch and the exciting, precarious sensation of being penetrated.

"Good," Dwalin said fervently, his head bowing. He fidgeted again, trying to take more and not quite finding the purchase for it. "Do it more."

Balin squeezed his hip and pushed in further, slowly, smoothly—Dwalin giving a hard start at the full press of Balin's cock against that sensitive place inside him. Shocked silence held for a moment, and then Dwalin moaned low and hot, a bubbling sound that reverberated right back through Balin's chest. 

"There," Balin murmured, drawing back to nudge the spot again before letting himself advance as far as the position allowed.

Dwalin cursed under his breath, both hands winding in the blankets again. He tightened, and Balin stifled a naughty word or two of his own against Dwalin's back. It took a few moments for them both to ease again, and then Balin reached for Dwalin's cock, which had softened some, but not nearly as much as he might have expected. Always hungry, indeed.

He stroked Dwalin with a loose grasp, more fingertips than fist. The teasing touch made Dwalin thrust shallowly into it, which in turn rocked him on Balin's cock. A soft, surprised inhalation marked Dwalin's understanding, and then he rocked his hips harder with a covetous hum. 

Balin followed, moving with him in a bridled rhythm. There were times, he had reflected, when the embrace could be a stranger intimacy than the coupling, but not so with Dwalin. He knew his brother's body better than anyone's—knew the way he breathed and the way he moved—and there was nothing but warm and private pleasure in being so close to him, as close as it was possible to get, and feeling the vibration of every moan and the coursing of their blood.

"Does it go any faster?" Dwalin asked, his voice rough-edged uncertain, as though the act of tupping were an untested pony. 

The words sent a shiver through him, those first shifting slides before a rockfall. He squeezed Dwalin's hip. "As fast as you like," he said, and he showed him. 

What followed was a song Balin would never tire of listening to. The bed timbers crying out, softly at first and then more loudly as the pace quickened. The lovely sound of skin against skin and flesh driving again flesh. Heavy breathing getting even heavier, and the rising call and answer of his and Dwalin's low, urgent noises.

His control slipped loose when Dwalin got an elbow and knee under himself and shoved back to meet his thrusts. 

"Oh..." Balin said, the only utterance resembling a word out of the unformed moans hiccuping from his throat with every push of his hips.

"I cannae—" Dwalin broke off for an instant, as if he couldn't think and frot against Balin's palm at the same time. "—I won't last if you keep making those sounds."

"Can't be helped, brother," Balin breathed. He pressed his brow to Dwalin's shoulder, another sound wrung from him as he thrust in deep. "Oh, it can't be helped. Just let it come."

Dwalin let out a fierce growl, nearly bending double with the force of it as his cock pulsed in Balin's hand. His spending spilled forth, his come dripping all over Balin's fingers, and his hole tightened in a fluttering clasp that proved too much to withstand.

Balin came not a moment later with a helpless shout. His breath left him, and his eyes shut tightly in dizzy pleasure as his stones surged again and again. He held Dwalin tightly to him as he spent to the last, both of them flushed hot as the hearth and shaking. It took several moments for the rush of blood in Balin's ears to recede, chased back by Dwalin's distant voice.

"Did you finish?" 

"Ah, yes," Balin said faintly, blinking. "I did."

"Good," Dwalin said, sounding just as quietly stunned. He flopped down onto his front with a great heaving sigh that hooked a little at the end as Balin slipped from him.

Balin was left admiring the well-spent sight of him. The way his shoulders softened as his breath deepened, and the brief curling and uncurling of his toes, and the faint red marks along his backside and thighs where Balin had rubbed and smacked against him. A very wicked part of Balin wished to part Dwalin's nether cheeks and see if he was just as red there, and if any bit of spunk had seeped out or if it was all thoroughly inside him.

"Let me get a cloth," he said softly, stroking Dwalin's side.

Dwalin grunted, grabbed him by the wrist, and yanked so that Balin was brought sprawling across his back.

"Oof!" Balin butted Dwalin's shoulder with his chin. "We'll be in a state if we don't tidy up."

Dwalin grunted again and did not let go of Balin's wrist.

"One of us has to go fetch the kettle if we want hot baths." He managed to make it through the sentence before yawning broadly. 

Dwalin echoed the yawn with another grunt.

Balin sighed, and when he gently extracted his wrist from Dwalin's grip, he entwined their fingers and stayed where he was. The tub and beyond did seem very far away, and he was already growing heavy with sleep. He rubbed his cheek against Dwalin's shoulder, nuzzling a little at his warm, sweaty skin and breathing in the muddled scent of salt and spunk and oil. 

He had expected snoring, but Dwalin merely lay beneath him, silent and loose-limbed, occasionally squeezing Balin's fingers between his own. Balin closed his eyes, squeezing back and feeling as though he were still aglow with embers. Whether they now shared a definition of _hungry_ remained to be seen, but he was quite convinced they were entirely in agreement about _sated_.


	9. Chapter 9

"If I might offer a bit of advice," Balin said the next morning after a breakfast of bread, broth, and a few cold sausages in front of the fire, "you'll want to devise a better tactic than catching someone's eye and then looking at the nearest bed."

Dwalin repositioned his gaze.

"Ah, no," Balin said. "Looking at someone and then looking at your cock doesn't count."

"Why not?" Dwalin asked, wiping up the last drops of broth from the bowl with the last crumb of bread. "You know what I mean."

"I do, but I think you'll find I'm remarkably easy to seduce," Balin said. 

Dwalin frowned at that. "How's it supposed to be done, then?"

"I'm happy you asked," Balin said. "With warriors, I find the direct approach is often best." 

He stood up and made a show of straightening his shirt and smoothing his beard. Then he took a small turn around the room and returned to sit down rather close to Dwalin's side, affecting happy surprise at seeing him. "Good morning, Dwalin. You're looking well—and conveniently nude, I see. Would you care to fool about?"

"Yes," Dwalin said immediately and reached for him.

Balin dodged him. "You try it."

Dwalin looked down at himself. "Do I have to put my clothes on?"

"In practice, yes. But for the moment, let's pretend you've made yourself look smart."

Dwalin stood up and immediately sat down again. "Good morning, Balin," he said by rote. "Want to fool about?"

Balin smiled politely at him. "No, thank you."

The hand Dwalin had already been extending dropped. "What?"

"I said no, thank you. Not right now."

An indignant frown creased Dwalin's brow. "Why not?"

Balin reached up and smacked him smartly across the back of the head. "Wrong answer. No one owes you an explanation for saying no."

Dwalin rubbed his head resentfully, but when Balin gave him a prompting look, his expression sobered. "I'm sorry for presuming."

Balin's smile widened. "Apology accepted. Now, to spare yourself such disappointment, it's sometimes best to sound the depths first."

He elbowed Dwalin softly in the side to give him the idea. Quick pupil that he was, Dwalin swayed towards him and gave him a friendly bump to the shoulder.

"Just like that," Balin said approvingly. "Bodies speak, and if he wants yours near his, he'll let you know."

Next, he leaned past Dwalin to retrieve one of the empty bowls. The movement pressed them close together, and he gave Dwalin a wink.

"Always with your outside arm so you can catch his eye, or else it might be taken as an insult. And if song breaks out, an arm over a shoulder rarely goes amiss."

He demonstrated, and Dwalin leaned readily into the embrace. Balin could think of few who would be able to resist him if they saw him so, but then, he had to admit that he might be biased. 

"If your intended is old-fashioned," he continued, "this might lead to a show of strength, such as an arm wrestle or a good bout of—"

He was tackled to the floor before he could even finish his sentence, laid flat on his back with the breath momentarily knocked out of him. Dwalin loomed above with a bright expression of triumph, the secrets of many a rowdy tavern night suddenly shared with him. Balin gave him a wry look and then promptly head-butted him.

They rolled across the room, scattering the pile of firewood and kicking askew the dishes as they tussled. Dwalin had the advantage of height and heft, but he was shoulder-heavy and lanky for it. Balin's centre sat lower, weighted in the chest and belly, and he had the good fortune to be fully dressed as well, which let him maneuver more easily on the wooden floor. Holds were attempted and then broken as they crashed about, and at one point Balin heard hesitant footsteps on the stairs that after a pause decided they didn't want to intervene after all.

"If he makes a grab here," Balin said, grunting as his legs were kicked out from under him, "that's a fair sign he's interested." 

He landed a hearty smack on Dwalin's bare backside to make his point. Dwalin let out a livid shout, and in the distraction, Balin got his shoulder under Dwalin's chest and flipped him onto his back. Dwalin landed hard, and Balin straddled his stomach.

"Ha!" Balin cried, locking his knees on either side and pinning Dwalin's head down by the hair.

Dwalin put up a fight, but it was soon quelled when he seemed to realise that inching up let him rub against Balin's backside instead. 

"Of course," Balin said, a little out of breath, "you'll want to be more discreet in public. And generally more clothed."

To his satisfaction, Dwalin sounded no less winded. "You said this was for warriors."

"I did." He stroked Dwalin's chest, feeling his lively heartbeat. "You don't want to go tackling most artisans or merchants without fair warning." 

Dwalin relaxed beneath him, save for his hips, which pressed up again. "So how do you ask them?"

"You don't. You wait for them to ask you."

Dwalin frowned. "Why?"

"Because you're a very large dwarf who carries a very large war hammer, that's why. Always wait for gentler folk to make the first advance. Be kind to them, and when they smile at you, smile back."

Dwalin snorted, obviously put off by the thought of having to employ charm. "I'll keep to warriors."

Balin chuckled and ground his hips down, feeling Dwalin hardening against him. He let go of Dwalin's hair and thumbed at his paps. "I have an idea," he said, his breathless state enduring for another reason entirely as Dwalin rocked beneath him. "Let's play a game."

"What sort of game?" Dwalin asked.

Balin paused, musing as he pinched Dwalin's paps sharply enough to make him gasp. "Let's call it Mercy."

"How do you play?" Dwalin asked, the gleam in his eyes suggesting that he had an idea.

"It starts with you lying down on the bed..."

Dwalin smiled, looking quite amenable to that.

"...and with me touching you, and sucking you, and maybe giving you a nice fingering, if you'd like."

"That's a good game," Dwalin said.

"Do you know, I think it might catch on," Balin said, winding a lock of Dwalin's beard around his finger. "Now, there's only one rule."

"Mm?" Dwalin's attention was evidently diverted as he ran his hands up Balin's thighs, skirting over his backside.

"When you feel yourself about to come, you cry mercy. Then I stop."

Dwalin's gaze sharpened abruptly. "That's a terrible game."

Balin chuckled. "I'll only stop for a moment, until your ardour's cooled. Then I'll get right back to it. If you're very good at it, I promise you'll come all the harder when we're done."

Dwalin hummed and rocked up against Balin again, as though he were considering coming now and sparing the fuss. "What's the forfeit?" he asked.

"Let's say the loser has to fetch fresh bath water and the kettle this evening. Of course, if you don't think you can control yourself..."

The room tilted suddenly as Dwalin reared up and flipped them both over. Balin landed on his back with Dwalin braced over him, looking fetchingly fierce. His legs were still locked around Dwalin's waist, putting them one set of clothing and a dollop of oil away from something rather nice.

"I can control myself," Dwalin said firmly, although this was perhaps belied by the way his hips pressed against Balin's.

Balin enjoyed the position for a moment longer before dropping his knees and giving Dwalin an affectionate shove. "Then get on the bed and make yourself comfortable while I fetch us some ale. This might be thirsty work."


	10. Chapter 10

When Balin returned with a flagon, he found Dwalin waiting for him in a very inviting state, stretched out with one arm folded behind his head. The advanced posture of his cock-stand suggested he had been touching himself, and the casual placement of his hand on the bed suggested he hadn't wanted to be caught in the act.

"Don't stop on my account," Balin said, latching the door. "I'd quite like to see."

Dwalin hesitated a moment and then obviously thought better of trying to deny what he'd been doing. He took himself in hand, a bit of red creeping across his cheeks but his movements showing the certainty of long practice. He touched himself as Balin might have expected: a firm, full-fisted grip with long, slow pulls. The muscles of his stomach tightened visibly with every stroke, and his arm flexed, his bicep deliciously round.

"That's...very nice," Balin said, his attention diverted for several long seconds by the glimpse of a dark-flushed glans appearing and disappearing into the tight curl of Dwalin's fingers. Then he shook himself back to his senses and set down the flagon on the bedside table, looking back often to enjoy the display as he gathered up a few necessities. More blade oil, a bowl of water, and a clean cloth joined the flagon, and then Balin settled in beside Dwalin, watching him more closely.

"It feels better when you do it," Dwalin said.

Balin smiled. "That's usually the way of it. May I?"

Dwalin repositioned himself rather imperiously, both arms folded behind his head and his cock jutting up expectantly. He seemed quite game to play now, despite his earlier doubts about the exercise.

"Good," Balin said, running his fingertips up and down Dwalin's length. "Keep your hands behind your head."

"What if I want to touch you?" Dwalin asked.

"It's against the rules," Balin said. "You're not allowed to distract me."

Dwalin appeared pleased to have his attentions called a distraction, and he prodded Balin's hip with his knee. "Then you have to keep your clothes on."

"Do I?" Balin said. He toyed with the hood of Dwalin's cock, drawing the loose skin up from where it had retracted and pinching it gently together.

"Ah..." Dwalin's focus grew hazy for a moment. "Yes? You're not allowed to distract me either."

Balin laughed aloud, delighted by the idea of being a distraction himself. "Flatterer."

"Besides," Dwalin said, his hips pushing up as Balin played with him, "it doesn't feel good, getting a stand in your trousers."

"Oh ho!" Balin exclaimed. "Now who's cruel? The only thing worse than a cock-stand in your trousers is coming in them. But you're not that distracting, brother."

Dwalin's cock jerked in his hand. He glanced up to find himself the subject of red-eared scrutiny.

"What?" Balin asked innocently. "Haven't you ever done?"

"Have you?" Dwalin asked, slightly breathless.

"Once or twice," Balin said, trying not to sound at all embarrassed about it as he stroked Dwalin's cock more firmly. "Trousers are tricky things when you're drunk and randy."

Dwalin swallowed hard, and his cock swelled even thicker in Balin's hand.

"And you?" Balin asked, taking far too much pleasure in the way that Dwalin's plain-spoken tongue still held stiff on certain words. A little loosening up was called for.

"Not while I was awake," Dwalin muttered.

Balin bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. "That's why you shouldn't sleep in your trousers—"

Here he paused, because it occurred to him that Dwalin generally did not sleep in his trousers. In fact, he only did so when travelling. Furthermore, it occurred to him that Dwalin's travelling had more often than not been done in his company. He looked at Dwalin, who was staring at the ceiling with fixed interest.

"You must have been quiet," Balin said lightly. "I never heard a thing."

Dwalin was quite right: it wasn't very comfortable, getting a cock-stand in snug trousers, but it was a foregone conclusion when he pictured his brother fast asleep and frotting in his bedroll, his face buried in the blankets as he made a desperate mess of his clothing.

"I thought you were being kind," Dwalin said, sounding slightly mollified. His hips caught on to the slow rhythm of Balin's hand and rocked along with it.

"I would have been, had I known," Balin said. "Everyone has their visits from a night lover when their blood first quickens. You were very discreet."

He did not wish to know—or so he told himself as he pressed Dwalin's cock down against his belly and petted it firmly. Neither answer would do his heart good, although for very different reasons. Besides, night lovers were fickle creatures who took their forms according to whim, with little care for rhyme or reason or preferences of the heart. He did not wish to know, and yet he asked:

"What did you dream about?"

Dwalin shivered, and a clear drop beaded up at the slit of his cock, as though the memory still held him in its embrace. He opened his mouth but did not speak.

"You don't have to tell me," Balin said hurriedly. He rubbed the wet drop across the head of Dwalin's cock with a slow swirl of his thumb. "Never mind."

Dwalin moaned and then shook his head. "It was daft."

"Dreams often are," Balin said agreeably.

"I didn't know..." Dwalin trailed off, his eyes closing as Balin brushed light fingers over his stones. "I didn't know how it was done. So in the dream, I only asked you to lie with me, and you did."

Balin was startled into stillness. His heart gave a clumsy leap up to his throat.

Dwalin opened his eyes. "I didn't cry mercy yet," he said with a touch of indignation.

"Ah, no," Balin said. "You didn't."

He caressed Dwalin slowly, thumb and forefinger making a loose circle that teased Dwalin's hood back and forth over his glans.

"We lay down together," Dwalin continued, quieter now and his breathing coming heavier. "We rubbed off together. Well, I rubbed off on you. You just lay there and...said things."

Balin found it hard to draw breath at all, his lights feeling as though they were being squeezed in a vice. Dwalin sounded almost contrite, as if he thought he had to apologise for not better reciprocating in a dream. Balin, however, could not help but wonder if this night lover had told Dwalin he loved him and spoken of spring rams.

"That doesn't sound daft at all," Balin said. He lowered his voice as though sharing a confidence. "I quite like it when you rub off on me."

There was a saying among their folk that pride ought to be found in the crafting, not in the keeping. So it was for right-minded dwarrows, and so Balin had to remind himself as he combed his fingers through Dwalin's beard and stroked him steadily. Covetous thoughts whispered persuasively, insisting that nothing but joy could come of telling Dwalin that he loved him, had always loved him, would always love him. What could it do but ease Dwalin's mind to know that he had been wanted in return nearly as long as he had wanted? To know that those nights when he had dreamt, solitary, of embraces in the dark, Balin had been remembering the very same.

_Mine_. The word weighed heavily on his tongue, unspoken. He wanted to press his brow to Dwalin's, and breathe in the salt and iron scent of him, and say it. _Mine. My brother._

Yet Balin swallowed down the sentiment, feeling it burn all the way to his belly as Dwalin shifted hungrily beneath his attentions. A deep flush was slowly rising from Dwalin's chest, painting him pink to the ears, and his heels dug into the bed as he moved with every stroke, shameless and trusting. He was still half-forged, caught up in the fire of his coming of age and softened to the blow of any ill-chosen hammer fall. There was no honour to setting vows in untempered steel.

He stopped his mouth from foolishness by putting it to better use. A long, slow lick made Dwalin groan, and then Balin fixed his lips around the dripping head of Dwalin's cock and sucked noisily.

" _M—!_ " Dwalin arched up, his jaw clenching.

Balin felt him shake, and in truth he half expected the game to end then and there. Dwalin held out for the space of three harsh breaths, his muscles tense and straining, and then he ground out:

"Mercy!"

Balin drew back immediately. His hands pressed chastely to Dwalin's thighs. "Good," he said. "Nicely done."

Dwalin only growled, his eyes shut and stones drawn up tight.

"Breathe," Balin said, the sight of Dwalin's precarious state sending a shiver through him. "There...can you feel it easing?"

It took a moment, but a little of the tension subsided and Dwalin nodded uncertainly.

"Have you got a stand?" Dwalin asked, his voice rough and his eyes still shut.

"Getting there," Balin said. A knot of heat sat low in his belly, and his blood was running hard.

"Good," Dwalin said brusquely. "If I have to suffer, so do you."

Balin chuckled and let his hands slide slowly up Dwalin's hips, along his sides and onto his chest. He curled his fingers in the thick mat of hair and firmly pulled. "This isn't suffering. This is your opportunity to show off, and you're doing very well."

Dwalin opened his eyes, squinting at him sceptically.

"Truly," Balin said encouragingly, and he leaned in to nip at the end of Dwalin's nose. "Now tell me when you're ready and I'll have another taste."

Dwalin's gaze lowered to Balin's mouth, and then he executed a rather impressive sit-up—keeping to the letter of the rules, with his hands behind his head—and nipped at Balin's nose in return.

Balin gave him a gentle shove back onto the mattress, and then found he couldn't help but follow him down to rub against him cheek to cheek, listening as Dwalin drew in several deep and steadying breaths. He hummed soothingly, nuzzling Dwalin's ear.

"Oh," Dwalin said, leaning into the touch and hooking his leg around Balin's thigh, trying to pull him down. " _More_."

Mercy was sought and granted twice more in the hard-earned minutes that followed as Balin drew his brother through a leisurely suck. Dwalin had far more defences against the most attentive stroking than he did against the briefest touch of lips and tongue. The pink in his cheeks soon turned to full red, and his cock became a dripping mess in Balin's mouth, hot and iron-hard.

Dwalin's stomach tightened, the little hills of strong muscle flexing with every deep, uneven breath. He could neither keep his eyes off the sight of Balin's mouth around his cock, nor could he watch for very long without averting his gaze to the ceiling with a soft, agonised moan.

Balin shifted, his trousers by now uncomfortably tight. He took Dwalin deeper with an appreciative hum at the indecent stretch it required.

Dwalin heaped terrible abuse on the Maker's name before choking off. " _Mercy_..."

There was no way for Balin to withdraw without a very wicked, wet sound, and Dwalin squeezed his eyes shut and all but shuddered at it.

"Lovely," Balin murmured, quite despite himself.

The dark flush reached from Dwalin's navel to his cheekbones. His cock was glistening, a thick strand of clear seed stretched delicately from his glans to his stomach. He was nearly panting, his chest rising and falling rapidly, and his paps were swollen hard and dark despite Balin not having laid a finger on them since their tussle.

"I think my stones are going to fall off," Dwalin said faintly.

"They won't," Balin promised him, giving the parts in question an admiring glance and laying a hand upon Dwalin's damp brow. "They're just fine. Would you like some ale?"

Dwalin nodded fervently. He made as if to sit up, but Balin held him down.

"It's all right. I've got it." Balin said, reaching for the flagon. "Open up."

He tipped the ale straight into Dwalin's waiting mouth, and Dwalin greedily quaffed it. His throat bobbed as he gulped it down, and a fair bit overflowed, dribbling from the corner of his mouth into his beard.

Balin tapered off the flow and then swigged the rest of it himself in three generous swallows. When the flagon had been emptied, he rolled the cool metal of it over Dwalin's chest, watching gooseflesh rise.

Dwalin gave a shiver of relief and licked his lips. A stray droplet remained at the very corner of his mouth, and Balin could not resist leaning in and taking it for himself with the barest flicker of his tongue. Dwalin jerked in surprise at the unfamiliar touch, but when his questioning gaze found Balin's, it held no revulsion—only pleasure-dazed curiosity.

"You missed a spot," Balin said apologetically, feeling something akin to a drunken rush at the thought of exotic practices that might be shared in a more leisurely moment.

For now, he set the empty flagon back upon the bedside table and picked up the blade oil. That was more than enough to distract Dwalin, whose attention suddenly shifted to the gleaming flask.

"Yes or no?" Balin asked, giving the flask a questioning shake.

Dwalin was even quicker to nod for the oil than for the ale. He stared raptly as a goodly drizzle poured into Balin's palm, and his knees inched apart uncertainly. His cock, which had grown a little more lax in the pause, visibly tautened.

Balin warmed the oil in his hand, letting it trickle over and between his fingers until his touch was assured to be slick. "Tell me when."


	11. Chapter 11

The assertion that he was not going to come in his trousers might have been premature.

Not two minutes later, Dwalin had one foot planted on the bed and the other braced against Balin's shoulder, spread wide and making the most fetching noises as he was slowly fingered open. It began with low, demanding sounds in the back of his throat as Balin's slippery fingers stroked along his cleft, followed by an impatient huff as Balin's thumb slowly circled and pressed. Then, most undoing of all was a deep, satisfied moan as he was finally breached, first by Balin's thumb and then by two fingers that slid in with rather wicked welcome.

A near-painful throbbing beat in Balin's loins, and the fastenings on his trousers all but creaked. He didn't dare touch himself, bearing up under the sweet tension of it as he cupped Dwalin's stones in a careful hand and let his fingers mimic the motion of a good firm tupping.

The sound this drew was even lovelier: barely there, softly tinting a sigh and only just audible over the slick, rhythmic noises below. Dwalin's foot pushed against him, not shoving him away but negotiating the leverage to let him rock against Balin's hand.

Balin had to momentarily shut his eyes, aware of a wet bead of excitement soaking into his smallclothes. His fingers curled, rubbing just so. Dwalin's gasps grew louder, a strengthening oh-oh-oh of surprise as realisation dawned that a couple of fingers was more than enough to be brought off with.

"Mercy!" Dwalin finally cried, and Balin stilled.

He waited a moment, watching Dwalin's cock bob desperately, and then asked, "Do you need me to take my fingers out?"

Dwalin shivered hard. "I need you," he said, his voice rough but very deliberate, "not to say that word."

Balin reviewed the exchange with a puzzled frown. "Is 'fingers' a rude word now?"

"It is when they're...there," Dwalin said. Although it had be said, his glowering was not remotely intimidating when his gaze was so thoroughly glassy.

"A very fair point," Balin conceded.

Dwalin shut his eyes and breathed deeply for several moments. "You're a damnable cheat," he said.

Balin blinked in surprise. "Am I? I think you'll find _I'm_ not the one screwing myself down on someone's fi—hand during amnesty."

Dwalin's hips stopped their minute motion, and he attempted another glare.

"'Screwing' is a perfectly innocent word," Balin said, tamping down on a smile. "You won't last long in any workshop if you think otherwise."

This time, the push of Dwalin's foot certainly was a shove, although not a very hard one. "You're a cheat. You didn't say how long I had to go, and now you're going to keep at it until I lose or I _die_."

The persistent flush was, admittedly, by now hardly distinguishable from a fever, but Dwalin was breathing very heartily, with vigour to spare. Balin patted him consolingly on the thigh.

"Item one: you are not going to die. Item two: that isn't cheating on my part, but a failure on yours to ask for exact terms. Let that be a lesson to you. And item three: I do in fact have a precise length of time in mind."

"How long?" Dwalin asked wretchedly.

"Well," Balin said, leaning in closer to confide, pressing Dwalin's leg back further, "I had thought that tonight, after dinner and a hot bath, I would get us both very slippery."

Dwalin was suddenly paying very close and serious attention.

"Then, when you were very hard, just like this, I would get on top of you."

Dwalin's mouth opened silently.

"Then, if you were so inclined, you might give me a nice tupping for exactly the length of time it would take for me to finish, at which point you would be free to spend yourself at your leisure in my—"

" _Mercy!_ " Dwalin croaked, but it was entirely too late.

A faint and astounded "ah" left Balin's lips as Dwalin came. The first shot was sudden and strong, arching over Dwalin's belly and landing in a pearly spatter on his chest. The next was even more desperate, and Dwalin pushed up with a growl, nearly arching off the bed.

Balin pressed him back down and got him in his mouth before the third spurt came. His lips sealed tightly around the head of Dwalin's cock, and he sucked him hard, fingers thrusting anew. Dwalin let out a loud shout, shaking like he might unravel as he spilled the rest of his spending.

The warm, bitter mess filled Balin's mouth and slid down his throat. It was one of the longest peaks he had ever had the pleasure of witnessing, and he didn't stay his tongue or fingers, long past the point where Dwalin's cock was pulsing fruitlessly. Dwalin shouted again, a little softer this time, and hoarser, and slowly his thrashing eased to trembling.

It was only when Dwalin's leg started twitching uncontrollably that Balin slowly withdrew his fingers. His hard sucking became a soft mouthing, and then he drew back, letting Dwalin's cock slip to soften.

"I'm willing to call this a draw," Balin said with as much magnanimity as he could muster, "if I can take my trousers off this instant."

Dwalin pounced on him like a panting warg—albeit a dizzy one. Balin was knocked back and happily flattened as their brows bumped hard together and Dwalin groped between his legs, squeezing his cock through his trousers.

"Truly?" Dwalin demanded, his voice as rough as a rasp.

"The draw?" Balin asked, not at his sharpest with Dwalin's big hand pressed against him, and not particularly inclined to quibble over errands when he was poised to split a seam. "Absolutely. You carry the tub and I'll carry the kettle."

"That's not—" Dwalin broke off, scuffling down to devote both hands to the task of unbuttoning. He glanced up at Balin for an instant, his jaw suddenly set curiously hard. "Will you really let me...make you yield?"

Balin breathed out a deep sigh of relief as the suffocating confinement of his placket eased and his cock all but sprang out. "Ah. 'Make' is a funny sort of word from someone who just came with my fingers in his bottom."

He had meant the comment to land lightly, but Dwalin's shoulders stiffened. "I—" he began in apology, but his voice rose into a hiccup as Dwalin stubbornly hunched over and took him into his mouth.

Even he was not beyond being struck dumb. The wet slide of Dwalin's tongue stopped his own, and for a moment he could only gape silently skywards as throbbing heat shot through him. There was very likely a lesson here about sucking cock not being an acceptable substitute for conversation, but at the moment Balin was selfishly inclined to believe it could adequately be taught by him continuing to speak rather than calling a halt to Dwalin's earnest endeavours.

One of his hands curled tightly in the blankets, oil wiped off crudely from his twisting fingers, and the other slid up Dwalin's back, over those tense shoulders.

"Do you know why warriors who shave their heads are the fiercest?" he asked breathlessly. His stones were already tight, and Dwalin had caught on to proper form remarkably quickly, his mouth rough but avid.

The shortest flicker of a glance was all the reply he received.

Balin closed his eyes, unable to keep back a soft, low moan as Dwalin sucked him harder. "It's because they don't care what shallow thinkers make of them."

He swallowed hard at the brush of Dwalin's beard against his skin and the faintest scrape of teeth.

"They...ah, wear the crest and don't mind if fools mistake them for criminals or cowards. They know who they are."

Dwalin's crest bristled between his fingers, gathered up in a great fistful as Balin toppled irrefutably over the edge of restraint, already so close, so needful. 

"They put nothing but ink between their bare crowns and the sky," he said, unable to keep the rapture from his voice as his body sang, "and they don't give a jot if someone thinks them weak with mourning."

The pleasure swelled in him, drawn forth by a hard pull of Dwalin's mouth.

"When you're strong..." he said, hardly able to hold thought and word together as the first shot shook him right to the core, "...you can make of your body whatever you like."

Then the effort of speech was too much, and he was silent save for laboured breathing as he came. He could hear Dwalin's wet swallow and a quiet moan that vibrated against his skin. A warm set of shivers washed over him, bringing him down so slowly that he could scarcely tell where his peak ended.

He stroked Dwalin's hair for a long time to follow, long after his brother drew back to lie down, face pressed to Balin's side and arm thrown across his thighs. They remained in thoughtful silence until, finally, Dwalin spoke.

"But you _will_ let me..." he said a touch insistently before hesitating, "...let you?"

Balin chuckled, a rather silly grin tugging at his lips. "I will let you let me," he promised.

He gave Dwalin's crest a little pull and yawned.

"Later tonight," he added. "After a good meal and a bath." 

He paused.

"And when I can trust my knees again."

Dwalin snorted and wrapped his arm more tightly around Balin's legs, hobbling him as he attempted to tidy them up. Balin managed to reach the night table nonetheless and did not hear any complaints when he soon had a wet cloth pressed to Dwalin's brow.

"S'nice," Dwalin muttered, already settling in for a nap.

Balin hummed his agreement, driving back the last of Dwalin's flush with cool water before properly cleaning them both. The cloth was then carelessly tossed over the side of the bed before he returned his hand to Dwalin's hair and lay with him in pleasant idleness, thinking of that length of golden thread still safely stowed away in his pack.

There was no call for pledges or poetry, but there would be nothing at all untowards about having it put in a locket as a keepsake, or perhaps set into a respectable gold ring. This was only practicality, he decided. Such a delicate thing might be lost otherwise, in all this journeying, and when all was said and done, quite enough had been lost already.


	12. Chapter 12

They slept away much of the day, sprawled under warm blankets that smelled of blade oil and animals in rut. In between naps, they threw dice or played High-Low and talked idly of friends and kin. In time, tentative footsteps ascended the stairs, and something heavy was set down outside the door before the footsteps quickly retreated.

Balin peeked out, a sheet knotted around his waist, and retrieved the supper tray. 

"I do believe there's mutton pie," he announced. "And fried potatoes, too."

There were few things save a battle cry that could spur Dwalin into action so quickly. Balin found the tray plucked from his hands, and within moments, the fire was built back up, a blanket was thrown across the hearth, and Dwalin was making very short work of the chips.

Balin sat down in front of the fire and cut the pie scrupulously in half before rescuing what chips he could. His own table manners were little better at the moment, as he reached for a second bite not an instant after burning fingers and tongue on the first. Bed-play could be famishing work.

They ate without conversation for a time, putting away the better part of four servings between them. Then Dwalin paused to lick his fingers clean, glanced at Balin, and then glanced away.

"So," he said. "How many have you had, then?"

"Chips?" Balin asked. He sought Dwalin's gaze and found it fixed vaguely on the window. He hazarded another guess. "Lovers?"

"Aye," Dwalin said. "Lovers."

"Exactly the right number," Balin replied primly.

Dwalin looked at him with an expression that bore no patience for pat replies. 

Balin shook his head firmly. "That's all you'll get out of me. There are one or two I had and regretted, and one or two I wanted and missed. All in all, it comes to a balance."

"Is it a small number, or is it rude to boast?" Dwalin asked.

"It's rude to boast no matter the number," Balin said. "Love is a private matter."

"More than five?" Dwalin asked.

Balin ignored him.

"More than ten?"

He examined a chip before biting it neatly in two. 

" _Twenty?_ "

"I'm not telling you," Balin said, chewing, "so you might as well calm yourself."

Dwalin let out an unhappy harrumph. He was silent for a moment, and then he asked, drawing himself up in suspicion: "What made you regret the ones you had? Were they cruel?"

"No," he said, "only a little careless, perhaps..." Here he hesitated, not at all certain that the question deserved to be dodged, but no more certain of how to answer it.

"Were they bad at it? Bed-play, I mean." 

"No," Balin said. Then he paused. "Well, one of them."

Dwalin's mouth and eyebrows twitched, but he didn't speak. 

"No, you're not bad it," Balin reassured him.

Dwalin visibly relaxed. "What was it, then?"

He mulled upon it for a moment more, trying to decide if the urge to change the subject was meant to spare Dwalin or his own pride. Then, conceding it was likely the latter, he said: "It's a serious decision, taking a lover. You need to think with your head, not just with your heart—or your cock." 

"Don't woo someone else's lover," Dwalin ventured. He did know his poetry.

Balin nodded. "That one most of all. Behind that, you shouldn't take anyone as a lover you wouldn't make your bosom friend. And if you're only seeking merry company for a night or two, look for someone who'd make a good drinking companion."

Dwalin's brow creased at that. "You mean someone who'll pay?"

"Ah, no," Balin said. "Or rather, that's another conversation entirely. I meant more in the way of someone you'd trust to see you home if you were blind drunk. Or someone you'd be inclined to see home even if they were sick on you."

Sceptical acceptance was the best way to describe Dwalin's expression, as though he were willing to set the advice aside and see if it made better sense later.

Balin sighed. "Or it could be I have no idea what I'm talking about."

Dwalin blinked in surprise and then looked about. "Where's a scribe when you need one?"

"I—" Balin could not in fact defend himself in good conscience and instead threw the last chip, which to his annoyance was ably snapped out of the air and eaten. "Love is a tricky thing. Far trickier than tupping."

"If you say so," Dwalin said, but this time there was only scepticism.

True to his word, he accompanied Dwalin downstairs after supper to prepare their evening bath. The house was conspicuously quiet as they neared the kitchen, and Balin caught sight of the landlord's grown daughter peeping red-faced around the corner at them before a sharply hissed "Myrtle!" made her retreat with a giggle.

With luck, he would never again need lodgings along this road. He had a feeling the Red Stag would be glad to see the back of them.

Then again, he mused, it was often the sign of a liaison well carried out when you felt the need to leave a note of apology for your landlord. 

"Door," Dwalin ordered, carrying the tub over his head.

Balin went ahead to get the latch, and Dwalin hauled the tub out into the yard to empty it behind the necessaries. The fresh air was sobering as Balin stepped out after him. Above, all was flat grey, but the hills gleamed like emeralds as far as he could see, and the smell of wet grass and rich earth hung heavily in the air. He turned his face up, letting the cold drizzle fall upon his skin and half expecting steam to rise from him.

"Don't drown," Dwalin called out, filling the tub back up from the rain barrel.

"Very witty," Balin said, but he shook himself from reverie nonetheless and ducked back into the warm shelter of the kitchen. 

Dwalin hauled the tub inside, and Balin latched the door behind him before taking down the large kettle from its hook over the fire. They toted the water back upstairs, and as soon as hot had been added to cold, Balin undressed and climbed into the tub with a happy sigh. 

It was, perhaps, a little naughty of him to enjoy Dwalin's pacing and fidgeting. He scrubbed up thoroughly as Dwalin huffed and harrumphed around the room before coming to sit beside the tub with an impatient grumble.

"I'll be out in a moment," Balin said, taking pity on him. "Then you can have your turn."

Dwalin's fingers ran through his hair unexpectedly. "Your braids look like caterpillars."

Balin sank further into the water with a sigh, rinsing off the suds. "And who's been mussing them up, I wonder."

"Must have been you," Dwalin said. Then, after a moment's pause, he asked: "Let me fix them?"

"If you'd like," he said, unable to keep the smile from his lips. He could not remember the last time someone had dressed his hair for him. 

Dwalin left him just long enough to retrieve a comb and bottle before settling in and rolling up his sleeves. From the corner of his eye, Balin glimpsed a serious frown of concentration. 

"Don't move," Dwalin said sternly, forcing Balin to look straight ahead.

Balin chuckled but obeyed. "Yes, my lord."

Dwalin deftly unclasped his woolly braids and unwound them with care. The slow pull of the comb was soothing, and Balin's chin drooped in contentment as he silently counted out a full one-hundred strokes. He then heard the soft pop of a cork and smelled the mellow scent of decent hair oil.

"Does hair oil...work?" Dwalin asked, audibly rubbing the stuff between thumb and forefinger before spreading it on the comb.

"For hair?" Balin asked innocently.

Dwalin tweaked a lock of his hair. "You know what for."

"It's a little dear for how much of it you need," he said as the comb worked its way through his hair again, smoothing it out. "It dries rather quickly, too."

"Hm," Dwalin said and then, as though deciding he didn't need to ration it for tupping, poured more onto the comb. "Only blade oil, then?"

Balin found his eyes falling shut and his shoulders relaxing as Dwalin parted his locks and began to braid. "Cooking oil is better if you don't mind smelling like a buttered roast. What you really want is the oil blended just for the task."

Dwalin's hands faltered. "They make oil just for tupping?"

The tone suggested that he thought Balin was having him on. 

"Lovely stuff," Balin reminisced. It was hardly high-minded of him, but at times it was the smallest luxuries he missed when he thought of lost Erebor: hot baths at all hours, and no lack of soft bedding, and market stalls that sold all things that could be sought. 

"Hm," Dwalin said again, but this time with a determined air. 

Balin only smiled and wondered whether he should warn Oin in advance or wait to hear of the awkward encounter second-hand.

He might have drifted off if the occasional brush of Dwalin's fingertips against his neck and ears hadn't kept him very wakeful. A fellow could drown in soft and peaceful pleasure amidst warm, soapy water and the gentle pull of neat-handed plaiting. In time, two braids were drawn back and clasped with better care than he ever took, and Balin smiled as Dwalin tried fruitlessly to smooth down the shock of hair atop his head that persistently stood upright.

"Let it lie," he said. "There's no fixing it."

Dwalin tried flattening it again nonetheless and then gave up and teased it up instead. "You should wear a crest too."

"I don't think so," Balin said.

"Why not?" Dwalin dipped his hand into the bath and then sculpted the fledgling crest with wet fingers.

"If you look like a shaggy pony, then I would look like a tufted squirrel."

"You would look fierce," Dwalin insisted.

Balin hummed in mild disagreement. "If I ever have three daughters to my name, I'll shave my pate and chin like Uncle Orwin. Otherwise, you'll not see me take up a razor."

A lovely shiver crept through him as Dwalin stroked his beard. 

"If you shaved your chin, you'd look like a _mangy_ squirrel."

Balin chuckled. "That could be."

Dwalin raked his nails over the spot in question and then asked: "Do you think we'd both fit in there?"

"I doubt it," Balin said absently, his paps drawing tight and his cock taking interest as Dwalin scratched his chin. The tub was built for a man, but even a large man did not take up the space of two dwarrows.

He made a faint sound of protest when Dwalin's hand withdrew from his beard. This turned to greater objection when Dwalin started stripping off his clothes. 

"Dwalin, use your eyes. You're not going to fit."

Smallclothes hit the floor. Then Dwalin swung a leg over the edge of the tub with a cheeky smile.

" _Dwalin_."

As it turned out, they did both fit. Half of the water, however, did not. 

"Ahem." Balin mustered as disapproving an expression as he possibly could with his knees nearly around his ears. "You realise you're cleaning that up."

Dwalin peered over the side of the tub. "The rug's got most of it."

"Would you at least be so kind as to remove your foot from my stones?"

The steel tub audibly strained as Dwalin wiggled. 

"I'm stuck."

Balin sighed. "Of course you are."

It took quite a bit of awkward maneuvering, but Balin managed to unwedge himself. The water sloshed again but stopped short of flooding as he knelt up between Dwalin's legs, negotiating space for them both. Dwalin wrapped his arms around him, looking altogether too pleased with himself.

"You're a menace," Balin declared. 

"You're meant to be keen on sharing," Dwalin pointed out. 

Balin snorted, chasing down the soap, which had somehow escaped being washed overboard. He rubbed the bar briskly between his palms, working up a lather, and then smoothed his sudsy hands over Dwalin's shoulders.

"Menace," he murmured again, but there was not an ounce of heat in it. Dwalin's naked need for closeness was endearing, and in truth, Balin wished to always see him so: a greedy-guts for touch, unashamed of his desire to cuddle and clutch and sprawl in a warm and heavy shared embrace. 

Perhaps it would not fade with time, he thought. Perhaps even in this age of loss, Dwalin was hard-headed enough to never put such things aside.

Perhaps, he thought, pausing in mid-scrub with his hands upon Dwalin's chest.

"Does soap work?" Dwalin, meanwhile, had fallen prey to no such distraction and had let his fingertips drift slowly down along Balin's backbone to where they hovered now, a touch uncertainly, just above his cleft.

"No," Balin said, quashing his budding melancholy with a rueful shake of his head. "It burns like the dickens."

Dwalin frowned. "Why are we still in the bath, then?"

"Because you so generously wished to share," Balin said, and to tweak Dwalin's nose, he insisted on washing him very thoroughly. 

He lathered up his hands several times in the minutes that followed as he took a very lengthy tour of Dwalin's body. No inch went ignored, from the tips of Dwalin's fingers to the ticklish spaces between his toes. Of course, other inches were paid special attention. Dwalin was quick to rouse under soap-slick caresses, his eyes darkening as Balin left his cock and stones scrupulously clean. 

Balin's own excitement flared as Dwalin's touch grew bolder. Those fingertips swept steadily now from Balin's back to his thighs and up again, moving in with every pass, not venturing to his cleft just yet but approaching with decided intention.

"I think," Balin said, "that the water is getting cold."

"Very cold," Dwalin quickly agreed.

The last grey strokes of daylight were already fading, and the room was hung heavy with shadows. It occurred to Balin, as he climbed out of the tub, that he should light the candles and the lamp before proceeding, or else it would be too dark when they finished. Yet he grasped Dwalin's hand nonetheless and pulled him straight to the bed, as if letting the matches lie might somehow keep the sun from setting just yet and hold the dawning of their last day in seclusion at bay a little longer.

The blankets were sweetly cool against his wet skin as he and Dwalin fumbled about on the bed, their restless embraces halfway between caresses and tussles. He pushed Dwalin onto his back and straddled his waist, holding him down by his shoulders and feeling the expectant tension in his muscles. 

"Go on," Balin murmured as the heat gathered in his belly. 

Dwalin's warm hands crept up his thighs. Balin hummed softly in encouragement, letting him take the lead. It was no trial, holding still and being petted from the backs of his knees to the tops of his shoulders, lightly at first and then with the greedier touch he was coming to know so well. Dwalin grasped the back of his neck and drew him in closer, leaning up to steal nips at Balin's ears and the tip of his nose. 

Gooseflesh sprang up as the back of Dwalin's hand drifted down his chest and stomach. A few good rubs was all it took to raise Balin to full fighting form, and when he pressed back, he found Dwalin just as eager.

"Now?" Dwalin reached towards the bedside table and then paused as if he thought himself presuming.

Balin nodded encouragingly, and Dwalin all but snatched up the oil. A hearty glug followed, what sounded like half the flask pouring out. That blanket was going to be no use for anything but patching, Balin thought vaguely, but all worry about oil marks fled at the first touch of Dwalin's fingers.

Dwalin's hands had always made quick study of whatever Balin had to show him, and this was no exception. He was careful, slippery fingers stroking along Balin's cleft. The touch was far softer than Balin was accustomed to, very nearly tickling, but he held his breath and tongue, letting Dwalin grow bolder.

The first gentle press drove a soft, hungry sound from his throat. 

"That's good," he whispered. "Go on, now..."

For an instant he thought that Dwalin had led with two fingers, but he soon discovered that just one of Dwalin's fingers truly was that thick. It provided a delicious little stretch as Dwalin very slowly eased it in.

"Is—" 

"Mm?" Balin did not consider himself easily distractible, but he found his thoughts momentarily delayed when Dwalin's finger gave an experimental wiggle.

"Are you sure it's..." Dwalin paused, his hand going still, and then he seemed to steel himself before forcing the words out. "Are you sure my cock will fit?"

"I've had bigger," Balin said before he could help himself, a touch of amusement in his voice.

He regretted the tone when an affronted expression flashed across Dwalin's face.

"But you're larger than most," Balin said soothingly, before Dwalin could open his mouth, "so have a care."

He knew he would regret the reminder as Dwalin, who could pay scrupulous attention when it suited him, proceeded with aching slowness.

"If you press a little...do you feel...? No, lower...ah, right there..."

His breath left him sharply as Dwalin found the right spot, sending a dart of pleasure straight through him. Even in the gathering darkness, he could see Dwalin's gaze fixed raptly upon his face, watching in measuring interest the effect of one not-so-little finger as it slid languidly back and forth, rubbing just so with every pass. 

"Perfect," Balin said, his voice giving a rather embarrassing quaver. He swallowed hard and tried again. "Very good. Now another, I think."

Larger cocks than Dwalin's he might have taken, but he suspected he'd had smaller ones than two of Dwalin's fingers side by side. They stretched him very nicely indeed, pressing at his pebble not only with fingertips but two thick knuckles on every stroke. Balin moaned softly, his head dropping forward and his hands curling around Dwalin's shoulders.

If it was nearly too much teasing pleasure to be borne by him, then Dwalin seemed in no better state. His fingers moved slowly and steadily, but his other hand clutched Balin's hip in fits and starts, squeezing hard enough to bruise, and when his cock brushed against Balin's thigh, it was hard as iron and hot as a brand.

It took all of Balin's concentration to keep his voice steady as he offered instruction. "A little more oil...push it in deep..."

Dwalin's fingers pulled out, leaving him momentarily breathless. Then they returned, slick and dripping, and pressed back in.

"Like this?" Dwalin asked, his hand tentatively twisting and his fingers spreading the oil up as far as it could possibly go.

"Ah..." A deep shiver seized him. "Yes, just like that. Now get your cock slicked up."

Dwalin withdrew just a little too quickly, but the brisk, slippery sound of oil on skin that followed was music to Balin's ears. He peeked over his shoulder, wetting his lips in anticipation. 

"Oh, very good," he murmured, shifting back. "Hold it steady for me, now." 

There was nothing like being breached just right. Dwalin's cock slid along his cleft on the first attempt, but the second found its mark. Balin had to shut his eyes for a moment, holding his breath as the thick head stretched him wide open. The sensation bordered on pain for an instant, but he bore down, and when that crucial inch was gained, there was nothing but push and pressure.

He sank down slowly, coming up against Dwalin's fingers. Dwalin did not move for a moment, and then he caught on with a faint, startled "oh" and let go of his cock, letting Balin take him right down to the hilt. 

"Oh," Dwalin said again, sounding stunned. "That's—"

"Good?" Balin asked, truly trying to keep the smugness from his voice. It was no easy task with Dwalin fully inside him, so deliciously thick, and hot, and throbbing in time with his heartbeat. 

"So good," Dwalin said breathlessly, both hands finding Balin's backside and holding on tightly. 

Balin braced himself again on Dwalin's shoulders and rocked his hips experimentally. It was not the most gainly position, but there was more than enough of Dwalin's cock to tup himself on, and he would not miss his brother's expression for all the world. Who precisely was yielding, he was tempted to ask, when Dwalin was sprawled trustingly beneath him with the silliest smile on his face?

"So good," Balin agreed, no more able to keep a foolish grin suppressed. He could feel Dwalin's chest and belly rising in deep, steadying breaths, and held himself still to let him calm, brushing his thumbs back and forth over Dwalin's collarbones. 

Eventually, Dwalin's hands began to roam. They ran along his sides, almost too light to be felt, and then stroked his back in long, soothing lines. When they returned to Balin's hips, fingers pressing into his backside, Balin took his cue and moved again. 

It would be a fine thing, Balin thought as he rolled his hips, if it were possible to capture a sound in paint or thread or metal the way one could capture a sight. There was something wickedly beautiful in the way that Dwalin swallowed hard, breathed out long and slow, and then swallowed hard again; in the subtle smack of skin against skin; in the rising exchange of shallow moans. 

This was the sweetness he had hoped to share when he had lessoned Dwalin in crying mercy. There was plenty to be said for the haste of passion, but this...oh, this was a far more intricate pleasure. He felt it in his fingers as they curled in the dense thicket of hair upon Dwalin's chest. He felt it in his chest as the breath swelled in him. He felt it in his thighs, which were already feeling the pull and stretch as he levered himself up and down, and in his mouth as his tongue burned with unsaid words, and in his cock, which needed not a rub to keep hard as Dwalin pressed so generously inside him.

The rhythm built up gradually between them, Balin's hips lifting and descending in longer strokes as Dwalin's pushed up. Heaving breaths flexed the powerful muscles in Dwalin's chest and stomach, reeling them both back and forth, and their low, crooning moans grew louder, rougher, raucous. 

He would be marked until morning, he suspected, as Dwalin grasped at him, pulling entreatingly and holding him for purchase in order to thrust up harder. 

"Put your feet flat," Balin urged as Dwalin pitched beneath him. "Ah, that's it..."

Dwalin's knees rose up behind him, and his cock shifted inside him, angling forward in a way that drove a happy warble from Balin's throat. The bed timbers cried out in reply as Dwalin pushed up into him, the steady slap of bodies growing to a sharp, percussive walloping. 

Balin rode with all he had, trying not to laugh aloud in joy at the thought of shaggy ponies. He was thoroughly jostled as he braced himself with a solitary hand, the other hastily wrapping around his cock, but he kept his seat with a squeeze of his knees and let out a needy growl instead as Dwalin jabbed at a tender, twinging spot deep inside him. 

Dwalin gave another hard buck, and then he was shouting, his hands clenching, and Balin could feel the throbbing pulse of it as Dwalin came. He was nearly there, so close but not close enough, and he ground down on Dwalin's cock, feeling the warm, wet mess of spunk dripping from him with every diminishing thrust. 

"Sorry," Dwalin said, the words barely audible between his heavy breathing. His hands ran restlessly up and down Balin's back. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Balin said, his hips still rocking until Dwalin's shivering turned to shaking. Then he pulled off, closing his eyes at the wet rush and empty feeling. "That was marvellous."

"You didn't finish..."

Balin rubbed himself, so near to cresting he could taste it. "Easily mended. Fingers, please."

Dwalin's hand brushed against the back of his thigh and then hesitated. "Do I need more oil?"

He managed to keep the desperate impatience from his voice, but only barely. "It's very good of you to ask, but no." 

Then, blessedly, Dwalin's fingers were pushing in. He heard a soft hum of surprise as Dwalin felt for himself just how well-slicked he was with oil and spunk. 

"Oh," Dwalin said, "you're all loosened up."

Balin hummed his agreement, stroking himself harder and pushing back on Dwalin's fingers. "I can take another."

What must have been a third slipped in, filling him back up with a satisfying stretch. Balin moaned, his grip tightening and his hand all but flying.

"Right there," he murmured as the sparks shot through him. "A little faster, now...a little faster..."

That was all it took. Dwalin's fingers spurred him to the edge, and his own hand tipped him over. He came with a gasp, a full quiver loosed upon Dwalin's chest in thick, arching shots. The pleasure carried him along through a long, sweet shiver that dulled his senses and left him wrung out like a damp rag. 

He stayed as he was for several long moments, until his arm was trembling and his back and legs complaining. Then, when Dwalin's hand had withdrawn, he rolled off and lay beside him with a contented sigh and shaky legs.

"Can we do that again?" Dwalin asked.

"Absolutely," Balin said. Then he hurriedly had to add "Tomorrow!" when Dwalin reached for the oil. "For pity's sake, some of us aren't striplings any longer."

Dwalin lay back down with a sigh and cuddled up, nuzzling Balin's cheek. "I'm sorry," he whispered in Balin's ear, "that you're so very old."

Balin barked a laugh and aimed a smack at Dwalin's rump. It had barely landed when Dwalin rolled off the bed, young and spry enough to be the one to fetch the washing-up cloth. He listened to Dwalin's footsteps on the floor and suppressed another chuckle when Dwalin stubbed his toe on the washtub in the dark and yelped a curse. They had both been living above ground too long. 

"Come back here and I'll tend to your wounds," Balin declared, feeling as though he had been to battle himself, sore and tired and utterly triumphant.

With a laugh of his own, Dwalin returned to him.


	13. Chapter 13

It could only be called morning with great charity when Balin awoke to find Dwalin nestled up behind him, hips rocking with the clumsy determination of the rutty and half-asleep. Balin opened his eyes briefly, taking in the dark room, and then let them fall heavily shut again, in no hurry to rise. 

All was still and quiet about the inn, not a floorboard squeaking or a songbird chirping. The blankets were warm and tangled about them, and Dwalin's arm was even warmer where it lay across him. He sighed as lazy bites meandered along his shoulder, and then his voice creaked contentedly in his throat as Dwalin's hand fumbled down to his cock.

He was slow to harden in Dwalin's loose grasp, but that was quite all right. Everything was pleasantly slow, in that sleepy way that made time flow like honey. Arousal trickled through him, making his toes curl and his belly tingle. Dwalin's chest pushed against his back with every deep, even breath, and his cock nudged with increasing insistence at Balin's bottom.

Balin rolled over—wiggled over, really—burrowing through the blankets until his nose was buried in Dwalin's beard. He reached over him, groping blindly until he touched cool metal. The flask was nearly empty, no more than a drizzle spilling out into Balin's palm. There was another little bottle of oil in his pack, the last of it, but his pack lay all the way across the room, and Dwalin's arms were far too comfortable to leave willingly.

He reached down between them instead and slicked up Dwalin's cock before guiding it between his legs. His thighs closed around it, the oil just enough to ease the way for a nice bit of frotting.

Dwalin grunted in befuddlement before a tentative thrust brought him up to speed. He murmured something indecipherable into Balin's hair, which Balin took to be praise for his ingenuity, and tightened his embrace.

There was no hurry to it. Sleep blunted all urgency, and the pleasure they made was lazy. The bed tilted slowly, and Dwalin's weight grew heavier against him until eventually he no longer knew which way was up. The only things worth his attention were the firm, furred press of Dwalin's stomach against his cock and the hot, smooth slide of Dwalin thrusting slowly between his thighs. 

He drifted between waking and sleeping, lulled by Dwalin's heavy breathing in his ear. A low, barely voiced moan rumbled through Dwalin's chest into his own, and a short while later—or a long while perhaps, Balin being in no state to say—he was rocked a little harder in his tangle of blankets and limbs, and he felt Dwalin tense and softly shiver.

"Hmm..." Balin held Dwalin between his legs until he softened, and then he reached down shamelessly to gather up the mess of oil and spunk on his fingers and rub it onto his cock. 

Dwalin's thighs were lean and hard, making a very snug fit as Balin idly chased down his own spending in dawdling, half-dreaming thrusts. It rose up slowly in him, urged on by Dwalin's fondling hand upon his backside, and when he came off, it was only with a quiet gasp that ebbed as a contented sigh. 

He could tell, even with his eyes shut, that the sun was now on its way to rising. By all rights, he should have risen with it to make the most of their last full day in seclusion. He had a duty to instruct, after all, and there was still so much to say and so much to do. Yet as Dwalin pulled the blankets stubbornly up over their heads, hiding them away in a dark and cosy cavern, he supposed that there was lazy wisdom in making the most of it right here.

Burying his face in the crook of Dwalin's neck, he fell back asleep.

* * *

 

"I never heard of doing it between the thighs," Dwalin remarked thoughtfully later that morning.

Of course, he chose to admit this just as Balin was opening the door to retrieve the breakfast tray. The landlady, halfway down the stairs by the sound of it, let out a lusty laugh. Balin decided that he liked her, but he had manners enough to be abashed.

"A little discretion wouldn't go amiss," he chided as he stepped back into the room with a large pot of oat porridge, delivered with a jug of cream. 

Dwalin ignored him. "Where else can you do it?"

"Up a tree," Balin said with a touch of dryness in his voice. He then reassessed the seriousness of the question when Dwalin did not immediately pounce upon the porridge. "Truth be told, any place that any part can conceivably be put has been tried, and in every manner imaginable."

"Have you tried them all?" Dwalin asked, leaning forward with interest. 

"A great many," he said, sitting down beside him at the hearth, "but not even close to all."

Dwalin's lips moved slightly, and his fingers twitched as though he were counting off every place that _he_ could think to put his cock and everything that might be put inside him. "What's the strangest thing you've done, then?"

Balin chuckled. "Ah, now. 'Strange' is not a word that folk will easily agree on."

This earned him a heavy sigh and a rolling of the eyes, which moved him to pity.

"Well," he said, thinking of some of his rather more adventurous liaisons: crowded beds, and inventive use of rope, and on occasion a cunning device or two, "there is one thing that I've only been asked once."

"What was it?" Dwalin asked, his voice hushed as though he were requesting a tale at the campfire.

"I once had the acquaintance of a lovely maiden," he said, "who was very intent on giving me a shave."

"She wanted to cut your _beard?_ " Dwalin exclaimed, reeling back in indignation.

"Oh no," Balin said, waving his hand dismissively. "She was quite happy to leave my beard. It was the rest she wanted to shear, and I'm afraid I had to politely decline."

Dwalin looked only slightly mollified, grumbling, "She was a woman, I take it."

"Certainly it isn't a request many dwarven maids would make," Balin said, seeing no reason to disclose the fact that the maid in question had been an elf. 

"Hmph." Dwalin seemed to consider this for a moment and then peered shrewdly at him. "It seems to me, brother, that this would be the strangest thing you _didn't_ do. Not the strangest thing you've _done_."

"We'll make a lawyer of you yet," Balin muttered, but he gave it no sting. He thought instead of something to share that had been lingering in his thoughts since their game of Mercy. "All right. There's something pretty that men do that I'm rather fond of. Shall I tell you or shall I show you?"

"Show me," Dwalin said gamely. "What do I need to do?"

"Stay sitting just as you are," Balin said, shifting himself until they were face to face. "Close your eyes. Good. And don't break my nose."

Dwalin frowned at that, but he held obligingly still. His tongue darted out for an instant, wetting his lower lip, and Balin watched the little motion with great interest. 

"Good," he said again, rather more faintly, and then he leaned forward and pressed their mouths together.

It was only brief, but it was thrilling: a warm, tickling brush of naked lips and whiskers, with the softest caress of mingling breath. Dwalin gave a brief jerk of surprise, but he refrained from violence. Balin drew back slowly, watching his reaction.

Dwalin opened his eyes with an incredulous expression. "That's...filthy," he said.

"Yes," Balin said, still watching him closely. "It is."

The corners of Dwalin's mouth lifted, scandal mixing with delight. "Do it again?"

Balin was only too pleased to do as he was bid. He leaned forward again and pressed his mouth to Dwalin's, lingering this time. He rubbed their noses together and then briefly captured Dwalin's lower lip between his own. 

Dwalin made a soft noise of embarrassed surprise, and Balin withdrew, searching his face once more.

"It tickles," Dwalin said. He licked his lips and then touched them in consideration.

"It does," Balin agreed, well-acquainted with the wicked tingle of it. "It's all right if it isn't to your taste."

Dwalin snorted. "I didn't say that." 

He came in too quickly, mashing lips against teeth. Balin resisted the impulse to retreat, bearing up under the hard, awkward advance until he could get a hand in Dwalin's beard and gently correct him. He tilted his head slightly, held Dwalin fast, and demonstrated the matter of pushing with one's mouth rather than one's chin. 

As ever, Dwalin proved a quick study. He went still for a moment and then tried again, this time softly enough to send a shiver down Balin's back, and just hard enough to bring back those tingles.

"I've seen men do it with their ladyfolk," Dwalin muttered a moment later, still so close that Balin could feel the puff of breath against his lips. "I thought they were biting. Or telling secrets."

Balin could not help but smile at the charming image. "A little biting goes well with it."

This time when he caught Dwalin's lower lip, it was between his teeth. He bit down gently and then pulled and sucked until Dwalin let out a rough cry. Quickly enough, Balin soothed the spot with a soft press of his mouth and the barest swipe of his tongue.

The sound that eked from Dwalin's throat next was even hotter and half-strangled. Balin opened his eyes, unsurprised when he glanced down to find Dwalin's cock rising. 

"...licking?" Dwalin asked, sounding stunned.

"Something like it," Balin said. "Would you like me to show you?"

He had balked at it himself, the first time. It had seemed too dirty, too strange, and he had half thought he might laugh at the ridiculousness of it and end up biting poor Eorl's tongue. Dwalin, however, seemed to have no such doubts, only swallowing hard before nodding and leaning forward expectantly. 

"Open your mouth, only a little," Balin said. He curled a finger under Dwalin's chin and pushed up. "Not that much."

Dwalin obeyed, his brow furrowing slightly in concentration as he waited, lips parted.

"Now close your eyes," Balin said.

Dwalin did so.

Khizing, men called it, and the naming had always struck Balin strangely. It was a very dwarvish sort of word for a very un-dwarvish practice. Had he been asked before he was educated, he would have fancied that it began with an _m_ , for a soft, warm "Mmm..." was drawn forth from them both as his and Dwalin's mouths met. Surely too, there would be an "ah," just as he found as he coaxed Dwalin's lips apart, and then an _l_ or two or even three as his tongue slipped inside in little flickering waves, teasing against Dwalin's until everything grew molten and urgent.

There ought not to have been anything sweet about khizing. The appeal was in the obscenity of it, the wet and messy profanity of _tasting_ lips and touching tongue to tongue. Yet somehow the forbidden thrill was not the foremost pleasure this time. Instead, he found himself seduced all too ably by the tenderness of Dwalin's mouth and the way Dwalin pushed so hungrily against him, pressing nearer and growling softly as if he couldn't get close enough and couldn't bear it.

Balin pushed back, his fingers tangling in Dwalin's beard and his own. Warm breath, rough whiskers, and the hot, slick pull and thrust—oh, Dwalin was going to be dangerous indeed, and Balin was no longer certain that he himself would be immune.

"The porridge will get cold," he managed to murmur when Dwalin, breathing heavily, granted him an inch of space.

Dwalin looked to the tray. His eyes were dark and senseless, and his lips were indecent: bruised red and glinting. For a moment he seemed torn, and then he resolutely pounced upon Balin, knocking him to the floor. 

"Oof!" He cried out more for the show of it, as a less sturdy dwarf might have felt the blow harder. 

It was obviously not a convincing act. Dwalin simply collapsed on top of him, well-worried lips curving into an unrepentant grin. "It can be done lying down, can't it? This..."

"Khizing," Balin replied and then pressed up to demonstrate that, as Dwalin had obviously suspected, khizing while lying down was even nicer than doing it sitting up.

"Strange word," Dwalin said, rubbing his chin against Balin's. "What does it mean?"

"It means what it is," Balin replied, and with a firm shove, he rolled them both onto their sides, his arm providing a pillow for Dwalin. Thus positioned, he moved his other hand down and neatly demonstrated the lovely combination of reclining and khizing _and_ having one's cock stroked.

Yet he wondered, as Dwalin moaned in happy, half-laughing pleasure against his mouth, whether the act if not the word were a metaphor, for tupping perhaps, or for eating, or perhaps even—sweetly naive as the guess had sounded—for telling secrets. Certainly, something significant seemed to lurk in the way they lost whole minutes to an exchange of nibbles and licks that waxed and waned and waxed again, their heavy breathing sounding like it belonged to one creature instead of two. Dwalin became fixated upon Balin's bare upper lip, sucking at it and biting softly until Balin was quite sure he'd be chapped for days, and his cock swelled in Balin's grasp, as hot and insistent as his mouth.

"It's all right," he muttered, wiggling back as Dwalin tried to get a hand into his smallclothes. "It can wait."

Dwalin withdrew, looking offended. "There's no need to show off," he grumbled. "Just because you _can_ wait..."

Balin chuckled despite himself and bit the tip of Dwalin's nose. "I am old. Ancient. Positively decrepit."

To his chagrin, Dwalin seemed to take him at his word and frowned in concern. 

"Oh, you callow thing," Balin cried, pinching Dwalin's bottom. "Wait a few years and you'll be no better. I only came off an hour ago, and while you might get me started, I'll not be finishing again so soon." He paused, seeing the sudden glint in Dwalin's eyes, and added firmly: "That is _not_ a challenge."

Dwalin sighed and then looked down at his dark-flushed cock and Balin's steadily moving hand. "You don't mind?" he asked uncertainly.

"Not at all," Balin assured him before teasing his lips once more. "Believe me, you are very entertaining."

There was a pleasure all its own in smouldering while a lover burned, and all the more so when his lover was as noisy and shameless as Dwalin. He could hardly be unaffected by such an ample armful pressed close to him, or indeed by such an ample handful, but he was clear-headed enough in between ravenous embraces to savour every lively moan and gasp and greedy hum.

He made a little study, tugging harder and then more softly, at this angle and that, fingers circling and grasping and pulling until he found just the grip to make Dwalin groan without end against his half-numb lips and surge against him like a wild thing. 

Dwalin bucked into his grasp, holding back with clutching hands and a nigh-thrashing wiggle before his mouth finally smacked against Balin's with a sloppy, wet rudeness of a sound as he spent.

Balin shivered hard, his fingers soon dripping with spunk and his mouth smeared with spit. The heat inside him rose and fell in a shadow of spending, shaking him with dry pleasure. He blinked at the force of it and then spared a moment solely to make good use of his handkerchief before he wrapped an arm around his brother's middle and held him close until Dwalin had caught his breath. 

"It was good, that," Dwalin murmured into Balin's beard.

His speech was leaning, sounding as though he were on the verge of falling asleep. It was perhaps due in part to the vigorous exercise he had just given his tongue, but Balin suspected he might have been content to drift off just like this before the fire had his stomach not noisily insisted on breaking its fast.

Dwalin sighed at the end of a long curmurring and heaved himself upright. He fumbled for the spoon and served himself a heaping bowlful of obviously congealed porridge and topped it to the brim with cream. The look on his face as he had a taste made it clear the stuff had gone cold as rain, but he shovelled it in stoically nonetheless, making no complaint. 

That impossibly fond feeling poked and prodded at Balin's heart once more. He had received many fine compliments in his life, and had even been the subject of one middling good bit of elvish poetry once, but he had to admit that no one had ever before thought him worth eating cold porridge for.

"What is it?" Dwalin asked, catching him looking.

Balin's admiring stare only dimmed a little in the face of Dwalin speaking with his mouth full. He hid a smile, which was easy enough to do when he served himself the other half of the porridge and tried it.

He chewed the cold oats with a grimace of distaste and gulped them down. "Nothing," he said. "You're very good at khizing, that's all."

Dwalin brightened, looked very pleased with himself, and not a little smug, as if he had suspected that was the case. He then proceeded to clean his bowl quite a bit more quickly than Balin, but for the first time in recent memory, he made no attempt to steal more than his fair share.


	14. Chapter 14

Chasing after sunlight only made it run faster, and it took all of Balin's best efforts to simply enjoy the day as it came and refrain from digging in his heels in a futile attempt to stop the morning from turning to midday, and midday to afternoon.

They threw dice and shared a smoke, and they made up for their stodgy breakfast with quite a good lunch of roast beef with pickled beets and cucumbers, accompanied by plenty of ale. Afterwards, Dwalin pushed him down and claimed him as a mattress, resting his head on Balin's chest and seeming quite content to settle in for a nap.

"There's a bed, you realise," Balin pointed out. He didn't make a very large mattress, and bare skin on hearth stones did not look particularly agreeable.

"Aye." Dwalin did not budge.

"You'd be more comfortable on top of it."

Dwalin's eyes had already shut. "You've got soft guts."

"Cheeky," Balin said, poking him firmly in the side.

Dwalin only grunted and rubbed his cheek against Balin's chest. One would have better luck putting a mountain to bed.

"Oh, all right," Balin relented, grabbing Dwalin under his arms and pulling him up into a proper embrace.

With a hum of satisfaction, Dwalin promptly fell asleep. He grew heavier as he drifted off, and his deep breathing rasped and rumbled against Balin's collar. Balin himself could not let the time slip away quite so easily, but he was happy enough to doze a little, on and off and on again. He rubbed Dwalin's back and idly played with his hair, combing it with his fingers.

Dwalin, without waking, grumbled something about feathers and pushed his face against Balin's chest.

"Shhh." Balin slid his hand beneath the heavy spill of Dwalin's hair and stroked the back of his neck. "Shhh..."

The line between sleeping and waking grew smudged as his fingers moved in small, rhythmic circles. He became aware that his own breathing had slowed in time with Dwalin's. Beyond, he could hear the sound of industry in the kitchen as preparations for the evening meal began in earnest. The clanking of dishes and cookware jostled him now and then, but Dwalin slept like stone, not so much as stirring until the smell of pastry began to waft up the stairs.

"Mf." Dwalin cracked one eye open and peered up at him. "S'dinner yet?"

Balin's nose twitched. "Not yet."

Dwalin's eye fell shut again. "How long?"

"Not for quite a while," Balin said. He yawned. "I can see why you'd be hungry, having been so busy since lunch."

Dwalin did not deign to reply, fidgeting instead as though considering whether it was worth his while to wake up. Finally, smacking his lips, he heaved himself up onto his elbows and blinked groggily at Balin.

"I told you," he said. "You've got soft guts. Better than a feather bed any day."

Balin could not suppress a smile. "There's flattery in there somewhere," he said, tousling Dwalin's crest.

Dwalin hummed in agreement, pushing into the caress.

"I'll show you something, if you'd like," Balin said, the idea coming to him suddenly as he let the thick strands of Dwalin's hair tickle between his fingers. "Seeing as there's time until dinner."

"Something like khizing?" Dwalin asked, looking rather more awake and eager at the prospect.

Balin chuckled. "A little dryer, perhaps, but a part of any good lover's education."

He wiggled out from under Dwalin and retrieved his pack, from which he took out his embroidery kit. He perused the contents, supposing he would need the rest of the yellow and blue to finish the strap he was working on. Fortuitously, he still had a small spool of red thread remaining that would do quite nicely.

It was perhaps cruel of him to enjoy Dwalin's puzzled frown as he took his time cutting several lengths of thread. He lined them up neatly on the floor and then, just as Dwalin was starting to look too speculative for his own good, he clarified:

"It's a touch old-fashioned, but you never know when you'll be glad that someone taught you how to make a love token."

Dwalin appeared doubtful at the chasteness of the lesson, but he settled in willingly to listen.

"There are books," Balin said, and then paused. "Or there were. Great treatises on all the secret meanings of knots and jewels and love-gifts."

It was nothing to the loss of life, but gold was not the only treasure stolen the day that Smaug stormed Erebor. He could only imagine how quickly the paper and vellum of the library must have caught aflame. Centuries of knowledge and wit, gone in moments. Sacred stories turned to ash and lost on the wind. Sometimes he still dreamed of the shelves and the stairs and the smell of ink.

Dwalin, however, had always been more inclined to learning with his hands, and he watched closely as Balin worked a starter's knot into the thread.

"They're tied on the heart side," Balin said, demonstrating by looping the knotted end into his beard just under his left ear so that Dwalin could see it clearly. He carefully twisted and pulled, unaccustomed to doing such a thing backwards, and managed to only curse once before carrying out a serviceable design.

He reached for another thread and made a second rosette, and then a third, until he must have looked like the improbable darling of a particularly romantic orgy.

Dwalin leaned in, peering at his work. "They all look the same."

Balin clucked his tongue and took Dwalin's hand, guiding it to the first knot. "Feel."

He held very still at the brush of fingers against his jaw as Dwalin scrupulously traced the rise and fall of the coiled thread. Dwalin frowned in puzzlement at first, and then understanding sparked in his eyes.

"Runes? Like mine markings..."

Every child born under the mountain learned to read by touch the marks carved into stone and wood, which gave direction even in the darkest tunnels. He watched with delight as Dwalin, furrow-browed, felt out the lines hidden in the knot and mouthed through the principal definitions by rote.

"Beauty and...worship? Awe?" Dwalin's frown deepened for a moment, and then he brightened. "'I'm in awe of your beauty'?"

"Why, thank you," Balin said, feigning a preening of his beard.

Dwalin snorted, but he looked pleased with himself as he traced the next one. "Treasure. Having...owning? 'You're my treasure?'"

"Which way is the khalek pointing?" Balin prompted.

"Oh. 'My treasure is _yours._ ’"

"Very good. That's legally binding, mind, so be careful with it."

Dwalin seemed unconcerned, the way only a young dwarf with a pair of heirloom axes and a few pieces of silver to his name could manage. He carefully grasped the third knot and took his time with this one, ruminating over the possible meanings.

"Eyes? Seeing?"

Balin hummed encouragingly.

"Is that supposed to be an upside down sil or a crooked sithur?"

"I don't make crooked sithurs," Balin said, mildly offended. "It's a sil."

Dwalin closed his eyes, rubbing the knot between thumb and forefinger. "Sunset? Tomorrow?"

"Nearly there," Balin said.

After a moment, Dwalin ventured a guess. "'I want to see you again'?"

Balin smiled. "Clever lad. Now try your hand at it."

He held still once more, his chin jutting out, as Dwalin picked up a thread and set to work. There was a trick to the art, and Dwalin's fingers had not yet learned it. Balin wasn't at all opposed to having a lock of his beard gathered and re-gathered, smoothed out and gently tugged as Dwalin attempted the knot, but his brother's sighs were less sanguine.

"Your beard's impossible," Dwalin grumbled, unwinding his work and starting again. "It won't hold together."

"That must be why I have so few admirers," Balin said lightly. "It's very sensible to choose a lover on the grounds of how easily their beard will hold a knot."

Dwalin had his teeth clenched, and so what he said next was partly lost in a growl, but it sounded suspiciously like: "You have too many admirers, if you ask me."

Baffled, Balin let a moment pass and then had to ask: "Who exactly are you jealous of?"

Dwalin did not reply, scowling and continuing to work at the knot with increasingly agitated movements.

"Because if it's me," Balin said, "then I'll assure you that you'll catch up quickly enough if you're so inclined. You have nothing to be shy about."

The scowl deepened.

"Of course, if it's them you're jealous of," he continued, "then you're being a donkey. It's none of your business, and I'd be a poor teacher if I were as untried as my student."

"I don't give a tinker's dam who you've bedded—" Dwalin broke off with a growl as the thread suddenly snapped in his hand. "Mahal's stones!"

"It's all right," Balin said, catching the broken thread as it fluttered to the ground. "We can try again."

"I don't want to," Dwalin snapped, pulling back. "It's foolishness, talking with bows and ribbons. Why can't folk say what they mean?"

Balin blinked in surprise at the vehemence of his words. "It saves face. Not everyone is bold, and fewer still are bold in love."

Dwalin turned from him, wrapping his arms around his knees and glaring into the fire with such force that Balin was surprised the fire didn't put itself out in submission. He tensed unhappily when Balin put a hand on his shoulder, but he did not pull away, at least. Despite his endorsement of plain talk, his mouth remained firmly shut, chewing on thistles.

They sat together without speaking for several moments. Then, when Dwalin finally glanced at him from the corner of his eye, Balin murmured consolingly, "It's hard to throw a snit when you're naked, isn't it."

It did not earn him the laugh he had hoped for, but the glare had somewhat dulled when it was turned his way.

"All right, you're not jealous," Balin said, willing to accept this as a premise for the moment, "but you're vexed."

Dwalin's nod was small enough to nearly be missed.

"Because..."

"Because..." Dwalin's face began to flush red, and his shoulders hunched, but he spoke squarely. "Because you think the king is mad."

Balin drew back hastily, frowning. He looked about them reflexively, well-accustomed to caution when speaking politically in these days. "I think," he said, correcting Dwalin firmly, "that he has not been entirely himself for some time. And I don't see what it has to do with—"

"And you don't think much of Thrain at all."

"I've never said that," Balin protested, but weakly.

Dwalin levelled a look upon him that said he hadn't needed to. "And you go away for months. Years."

" _One_ year," Balin said, "and only twice. There hasn't been much call for hired swords or scribing in the towns we've joined."

He tried to fit together the pieces he had been given, and failed. Dwalin had missed him? Thought he had dallied away his time on the road with lovers when he could have returned sooner? What then did that have to do with his feelings about Thror's line?

With a brief and silent plea to the maker for patience, he ventured a guess. "Do you think I disapprove of Thorin?"

Dwalin fell back with his hands over his eyes, groaning. "What is your obsession with _Thorin_?"

Balin knew, in that moment, exactly what it would be like to have a conversation with a brick wall that had been granted the power of speech. Unfortunately, he suspected that beating his head against Dwalin would not feel quite so satisfying.

He had known his brother longer and better than most anyone else, and yet Dwalin's thoughts were at times an utter mystery to him. It was like holding a book so close that he could no longer make out the words and could only gaze upon the strokes and whorls of ink upon the page. He rubbed his eyes wearily and then said:

"I love you, Dwalin, but there are times you make my head hurt."

Balin had intended it as a mild rebuke, but like a miner throwing his pickaxe aside in frustration, he somehow, unexpectedly, struck what he sought. Dwalin sat up abruptly and looked back at him with startled surprise.

"Say that again," he ordered.

Balin frowned but obeyed. "I love you," he said, "but there are times—"

He broke off when he saw that the surprise had not shifted from Dwalin's expression.

"I love you," Balin said again, this time not offhandedly or by rote, but deliberately.

Of course he loved his brother. If love could be measured in weight or wealth, then Dwalin held more of his than anyone else, and this fact was so irrefutable in Balin's eyes that he could hardly conceive of anyone thinking otherwise. They would not be here if he did not love Dwalin, and he nearly said so, but the naked relief in Dwalin's eyes stopped his tongue.

He opened his mouth and found himself hesitating. He knew how to make a pretty speech, but plain talk did not come easily to him. They had all of them, the lost souls of Erebor, learned to fetter their tongues. Elsewise, he often suspected, they would do nothing but speak in endless, grief-stricken circles about what had been lost. They had taught themselves to converse in shared silences, to murmur from the corners of their lips, and to dance along the edges of words that should not be overheard.

"When I'm away," he said carefully, "I think of you. Every day, as it happens."

It was the truth. In the beginning, it had been fear that kept Dwalin constantly in his thoughts: the unshakeable anxiety that some further calamity would befall his kin on the road or in their camps while he was absent. In later years, it had been a gnawing worry that his coin would not stretch to amply feed a growing youth or comfortably clothe him. Then, somewhere in the last days of Dwalin's youth, it had become something else entirely.

Dwalin peered at him closely. He was still and silent for a moment, and then he nodded slowly. "Then you will tell me? If you're not coming back?"

Balin blinked, bewildered. "Not coming back? Why wouldn't I come back?"

The tightening of Dwalin's mouth said, quite clearly, that they both knew why.

"We've always been a wandering line," Balin said, frowning, "but we always come home when our wandering is done. You know that."

"Our home is lost," Dwalin said flatly.

Like the teeth of two gears sliding into place, something quietly clicked.

"And I," Balin said slowly, "have no great calling to follow Thror."

Dwalin nodded. His face was thunderous, but when he spoke, his voice was almost painfully restrained and reasonable. "So when one of those admirers of yours wants you to make a home somewhere else, I suppose you'll not have a reason to refuse."

Balin's eyes fell shut for a brief moment, and his stomach clenched painfully. He had no shortage of memories of leaving Dwalin behind. 'When will you be back?' 'I cannot say.' How many times had Dwalin asked, and how many times had he replied? He had not wished to make promises he could not keep, not with work for hire so uncertain and the weather so changeable here in the west. It had never occurred to him that Dwalin would not understand that nothing but death could keep him from returning in time. And he was meant to be the clever one.

"Listen to me," he said, opening his eyes. He grasped Dwalin by the elbows and held him firmly. "Both ears, now."

Dwalin leaned in closer with a serious frown.

"You are my brother," Balin said. "Do you know what that means?"

A small nod was followed by an uncertain shake of the head.

Balin tightened his grip on Dwalin's arms. "It means we're each the closest kin the other will ever have, in these lands or the next. Whether we ever do this again, you will always be my brother, and wherever you are is home to me." He said it again, his eyes locked on Dwalin's. "Wherever you are is home to me. Do you understand?"

The sound that Dwalin made was neither a yes or a no, but the way he grabbed Balin bodily and yanked him close was answer enough. Balin's breath was crushed from him once more, but this time it was painless. He melted into the embrace, unaware until that moment of how frozen he had been, and he wrapped his arms around Dwalin's middle and clasped him in return.

There they sat, Dwalin holding on fiercely, unmindful of his strength as though he still thought Balin bigger than him, and Balin uncomplaining. Dwalin rubbed his cheek against Balin's and then laid his brow upon Balin's shoulder.

Neither spoke for a long while, until Dwalin finally asked: "Why wouldn't we do this again?"

"Hm?" It took him an instant to translate the warm vibration of words into meaning.

"You said, 'whether we ever do this again,' Why wouldn't we?"

He rubbed the small of Dwalin's back in a soothing circle and then let his fingers press, squeezing possessively. "Oh," he said. "No good reason I can think of."


	15. Chapter 15

Balin waited to the count of five. Dwalin did not fail him.  
  
"Can we do it again _now_?"  
  
He laughed softly and was not at all disinclined when Dwalin nuzzled his shoulder and leaned even more heavily against him. "I don't see why not. What exactly do you want to do?"  
  
"Anything," Dwalin rumbled, rubbing his cheek against Balin's.  
  
"Something slow?" Balin asked, his fingertips sliding down to Dwalin's backbone to the top of his cleft, "or something hard?" He gave Dwalin's backside a hearty pinch.  
  
A grin crept into Dwalin's voice. "Hard."  
  
"Bed, then," Balin declared. "You're not tupping me on the floor."  
  
Dwalin breathed in sharply, and within an instant, Balin found himself nearly lifted clean off his feet as Dwalin yanked him up with a growl of happy anticipation. They headed straight for the bed but barely made it three stumbling steps before entangling again. Balin's back hit the footboard, and Dwalin curled down over him, pushing their mouths together.  
  
"Dirty beggar," Balin chuckled against Dwalin's lips. He wrapped his arms around Dwalin's middle and pulled him even closer. "You'll get a crick in your neck."  
  
"I don't care," Dwalin growled before khizing him again.  
  
They fumbled gracelessly with each other as their eagerness grew. Dwalin's fingers shoved their way down the front of his trousers, urging him to a stand. Balin bit at Dwalin's lip and then at the nearer targets of collar bones and paps. His teeth dug in and his cheeks hollowed as he left vivid suck-marks wherever he could.  
  
It was more than the satisfying give of flesh that drove him, and more than Dwalin's low grunts of pleasure that accompanied every bite. He wanted to leave marks that would follow them out of here in the morning. Nothing indiscreet, of course. Dwalin's bare-bearded return would reveal the truth to anyone who cared to look, but Balin hardly intended to march back to camp with either of them looking as thoroughly debauched as they were. Nevertheless...something red and bruised, something tender, teased by the brush of a shirt and lingering as a reminder of what they had done...  
  
Dwalin moaned loudly as the next biting suck smacked against his shoulder, and his hand faltered, squeezing around Balin's cock. "Ah...mercy. I'll come off if you keep that up."  
  
"You won't," Balin said, but he could feel the rising insistence of Dwalin's stand against his belly and wondered if he could.  
  
"Can it...can it be done standing up?" Dwalin asked.  
  
"Aye, in theory," Balin said, trying to disentangle Dwalin's hand from his trousers in a bid for the bed, "but unless you want to put your knees out or find me a box to stand on, it can't be done by us."  
  
They parted just long enough for Balin to pull off his shirt and trousers, and they clambered onto the bed in a jumble of stray elbows and greedy hands. A call for oil sent Dwalin diving halfway over the edge of the mattress, with Balin holding him by the ankles while he rummaged about for the very last flask.  
  
"Ha!" Dwalin cried in victory, and Balin reeled him back in.  
  
"Give it here," he said, plucking the flask from Dwalin's hands. He unstopped it carelessly and poured a good measure of oil over his fingers. Then he leaned back and saw to preparing himself as Dwalin's eyes lit up with the slowly dawning pleasure of someone who has just realised that something very pleasant could in fact be practiced on one's own any time one wished.

He could not help but imagine it, his mind leaping over the fence that stood tall between what he knew could be within these walls and what he could only now allow himself to envision beyond them. The image of a dark tent painted itself in broad strokes as he worked himself open with impatient fingers. Dwalin, of course, would have to be made to go slower than this, more gently, at least to start. Balin would have to supervise him very closely as he tried it, and keep him quiet, perhaps with a hand over his mouth...  
  
His daydreaming was interrupted by the sharp sting of Dwalin's teeth around his pap. Another blossom of heat flared seconds later as Dwalin bit the other pap to match, and then his mouth dragged down Balin's stomach in a smear of wet heat and bristling whiskers. Lips sealed tightly around the head of his cock, and Balin's hips lifted, his fingers pushing deep inside as Dwalin fervently sucked him.  
  
There was something to be said for patient preparation—for the notion of lying back and making the very most of the oil as he enjoyed Dwalin's mouth—but perhaps, he considered, it had all already been said at length and in proper depth. To that end, he grabbed the flask and hastily upended it over Dwalin's cock. The oil spilled out messily, trickling down in glinting rivulets that were soon rubbed into a generous, gleaming slickness.  
  
Dwalin's mouth fell further agape, relinquishing its grasp on Balin's cock. His fingers dug hard into Balin's hip.  
  
"Now?" he asked, his voice pulled tight, as if he were willing the answer to be yes.  
  
"Now," Balin agreed, yanking Dwalin down on top of him.  
  
What followed was almost comically clumsy, teaching no lesson save that there were certain times when there was nothing finer than getting carried away. The flask was knocked to the floor, landing with a clang, and the bed frame squeaked as they urgently arranged themselves. Their arms and legs bumped and tangled, and Balin had to deliver a kick to Dwalin's side to make him lift his bulk long enough to let him shove a pillow under his hips. Then, bypassing Dwalin's apparent confusion as to whose legs were meant to go where, Balin eschewed the explanation for a practical demonstration by clamping his knees on either side of Dwalin's waist.  
  
Dwalin fumbled, cursing under his breath as it took several slippery attempts before he guided himself in. He had the mind to go slowly despite his eagerness, his eyes meeting Balin's in question and his hips holding still until he got a nod. Only then did he go forward, pushing in further with a low moan of tightly strung satisfaction.  
  
"Aye, that's..." Balin's words trailed off into a happy hum as he was thoroughly breached. The stretch of it was a brief, bright flare overlaid upon the steady throb of his own pulse. One hand crept down, rubbing his cock against his belly, and the other reached up, fingers winding in Dwalin's beard. He licked his lips and tried his tongue again. "Go on. At your leisure."  
  
They made the bed cry out beneath them, softly at first and then much more noisily as Dwalin struck a steady pace. Heavy breathing joined the song, and then the growling bass of Dwalin's voice with every firm thrust. Balin moaned, the small sounds warm and warbling in his throat, and he pulled Dwalin even closer with his knees, finding a sweeter angle and pushing back to meet him.  
  
"Harder," he said, his voice catching as the curve of Dwalin's cock sent sparks through him.  
  
The bed gave a sharp creak as Dwalin obliged, hammering into him with such vigour that Balin's teeth nearly rattled. His cock and stones were jostled, and he pulled at himself in the scant space between Dwalin's belly and his own, ready to come off with only a little more pressure, a little more friction.

A hot flush had spread from Dwalin's chest to his cheeks. His jaw was clenched, and his eyes were bright, and his breathing came in bullish snorts. He would be absolutely magnificent, Dwalin, when he had full mastery of himself. Balin had seen his share of well-made lovers tire long before this, able to offer only a dozen or two whiplash thrusts before they tired, but he knew it was only the fear of finishing too quickly that made Dwalin tense and shake. He would be magnificent, and he was magnificent now, so fine and strong.  
  
"Lovely," he murmured, his eyes pressing shut tightly. "Just a little more...ah, you'll be the end of me..."  
  
If Dwalin meant to reply, his words were lost to a hungry moan and the feverish rush in Balin's ears. He drove in with a flurry of thrusts that made Balin's back and toes and fingers curl, and Balin called out in reckless, wanton pleasure as he came off like a firework.  
  
The mattress, or perhaps the whole room, seemed to tilt below him. His face went hot and his mind ran dizzy as he spent onto his hand and onto his stomach and onto Dwalin's stomach.  
  
"Oh," Dwalin said, strangled. "I could  _feel_  that..."  
  
Balin grinned and dug his heel into Dwalin's buttock as if he were spurring on a recalcitrant mount. "Don't stop," he said breathlessly, tugging smartly on Dwalin's beard. "As hard as you like, now."  
  
The buzz and fizz in his blood only grew as Dwalin's final thrusts came with singleminded force. He was shaken and jounced, and he could only laugh aloud with the pleasure of it as three unbridled, slamming snaps of Dwalin's hips nearly bucked them both clean off the groaning bed.   
  
Dwalin crowed as he came off, a cry of astounded relief surely deafening the very birds outside. He gave a great shiver, and Balin could feel the pulse of it as Dwalin's spunk spilled inside him.   
  
"That..." Dwalin broke off, thrusting twice again, screwing himself in to the very hilt. "Brilliant. That's brilliant."  
  
Balin made a faint sound of agreement, lowering one unsteady leg. The other stayed wrapped around Dwalin, easing him down and keeping him inside. Dwalin sighed and followed, flopping down heavily atop him.  
  
At which point, with one final creak of complaint, the bed gave up and finally collapsed.  
  
 _Crash!_  
  
The mattress folded neatly in two as the central beam gave way, and Balin let out a shout of surprise as he slid blunderously down the sudden incline.   
  
A stunned silence proceeded for several seconds, and when Balin finally recovered well enough to meet Dwalin's eyes, it was all he could do to school his features.   
  
"I don't think I need to tell you," he said with what he thought was admirable self-control, "that it is shockingly rude to break someone else's bed. Tupping someone through the mattress is what we call a metaphor."  
  
He hardly made it through the last word before the laughter that had been bubbling up in his chest finally burst forth. A strange expression crossed Dwalin's face, and for a worried moment Balin thought he had taken him seriously. Then Dwalin looked down incredulously, and Balin realised he could feel this too.   
  
Dwalin snorted and then barked a laugh before burying his face in the crook of Balin's neck and _howling_. His fist came down against the mattress, pounding as they jostled each other.  
  
The beam cracked again, sending them sagging further, and it set Dwalin off anew, laughing so hard that it vibrated straight through his chest into Balin's. Chortling, Balin patted him on the back until the fit ended.

"Hush," he said. "Calm yourself." Although to be very honest, his own smug grin could no more easily be banished. 

* * *

He awoke that night to a subtle tugging of his beard and the sound of Dwalin cursing under his breath.  
  
It was not the first time he had stirred from his sleep, and for a hazy moment he thought he might be dreaming. Despite his best efforts, the evening had slipped through his fingers, pleasant but all too brief. He and Dwalin had shared a satisfying dinner of beef stew and black bread, and then had shared a bath until the water turned cold, with both of them crammed into the tub together, Dwalin's back against his chest. Afterwards, Balin had dragged the mattress off the splintered bed frame and onto the floor. He had opened the windows to clear out the closed-in scent of sweat and spunk, and then he and Dwalin had bundled up together under all the blankets, lying close together to ward off the chill.  
  
From there, Balin had woken every half-hour or so as he could reckon it, squinting open his eyes to reassure himself that it was not yet dawn, not quite yet.   
  
" _Mahal's stones..._ "   
  
The words were hardly breathed, but with Dwalin's lips so close to his ear, he could feel the shape of them.   
  
"s'wrong?" he asked in a croak.  
  
Dwalin immediately stiffened. The pressure on Balin's beard eased, and he muzzily understood that Dwalin's hands had stilled.  
  
"Go back to sleep," Dwalin whispered.  
  
"I'm not really awake," Balin confided in a mumble.  
  
He was telling the truth, or nearly so. Dwalin's arm wrapped warmly around him, and within the space of breaths, he felt himself sinking down again. Curiosity nibbled at him as he drifted off, but he batted it away, pressing his face against Dwalin's shoulder and giving in to the pull of sleep.  
  
It was at least an hour before he woke again. This he knew because of how stiff his neck felt. He peered once again towards the window and ascertained that it was still night. Dwalin was quietly snoring beside him. He had the vague sense that they had spoken just now, but confusion lingered as to whether he was awake or dreaming.  
  
He was too chilled to be asleep, he finally decided. Slowly, trying not to disturb Dwalin with any sudden movement, he pulled a sagging blanket back up around his shoulders. He fidgeted a little, stretching his back, and shifted his weight off his arm. That was when he felt it: the unfamiliar pull of something just below his left ear. He shook his head, taking it at first for an insect. Yet whatever it was did not take flight, and so he reached up with questing fingers.  
  
It was a knotted length of thread.   
  
His heart gave a curious thud, many seconds before his befuddled mind caught up. His fingertips brushed over the knot, reading it closely once, and then again, and then a third time. The token was clumsily made, crafted in the dark by beginner's hands, but it was undoubtedly a large and slightly leaning hodel.  


The tight tangle of blankets around him and the weight of Dwalin's arms across his middle could not entirely explain the difficulty he had drawing breath. A lump rose in his throat, and he found Dwalin's hand in the dark and laced their fingers together. Dwalin roused, grunting a sleepy question, but Balin hushed him tenderly.  
  
There he lay, still and without words for a very long time. He listened for the steady lub of Dwalin's heartbeat beneath the rough rumble of his snoring. He breathed in the scent of him. He touched the knot with utmost care, not wishing to disturb it. Most of all, he willed himself to remember these things, and to always remember them, so that if he ever had cause to wonder when and how he had known how much he loved Dwalin, there would be no doubt as to the answer.  
  
Hodel for hearth, and hodel for home. Hodel for the head of the household—for him—and hodel for the secret name that their mother had whispered into his ear when Dwalin was eight days old and thriving.   
  
Oh, his clever brother.


	16. Chapter 16

In time, the sky lightened. The black of night shifted to dark blue and then to a muddled grey. Wrens and robins began their noisy chattering, and Balin reluctantly lifted his head from the pillow, glaring up at the window as if the birds were solely responsible for ushering in the morning. For a moment, he hid his face back in the comforting darkness, letting sleep tug entreatingly at his limbs and his eyelids. Then, slowly, he raised his hand and felt his beard, his fingers brushing once again over the love knot.

He hadn't dreamed it, then. A wry smile tugged at his lips as his chest swelled with ridiculous fondness. Well, of course he hadn't dreamed it—he was not such a romantic as that.

With a yawn, Balin propped himself onto one elbow and watched Dwalin as he slept. The light was faint, only barely picking out the edges of shadows, but Dwalin's expression looked peaceful. His chest rose and fell in deep, measured breaths, and Balin gave him an affectionate pat before shifting regretfully back from the forge-heat cast from Dwalin's sleeping form and unwinding himself from the blankets.

Dwalin's snoring did not so much as falter, and yet he reached out unerringly when Balin tried to rise and grabbed him by the arm. He grunted in his sleep and pulled with clumsy strength.

"Let go," Balin murmured. "It's time to get up."

"Mph." Dwalin pulled at him again. "Bit longer?"

"No," Balin said. "It's time to get up."

Dwalin grunted again before squinting his eyes open with what seemed like great effort. It took a moment for his gaze to focus, but it soon fixed to the token in Balin's beard, prompting him to look very pleased with himself. His grin was sleep-addled and thoroughly charming below his half-squashed crest.

"One more time?" Dwalin asked, rolling over and revealing a morning half-stand. He groped for Balin's cock.

It was a very persuasive offer. The room had sunk from cold to frigid in the night from the window hanging open, and the snug cavern of blankets beckoned him to crawl back in and rest a little while longer. Dwalin's hand was warm, sleep-blunted but generous. A frot, a rub, maybe a suck...how long would it really take?

Yet he knew the soft limits of his own resolve, and one more time could so easily turn into one more time, and one more time after that. He did not wish to end their stay with the humiliation of a forcible eviction, and so he extricated himself regretfully from Dwalin's grasp.

"It's time to get up. We need to clean this pit, and we'd do best to leave before the landlord is about."

Dwalin heaved a weighty sigh as he sat up. "You're no fun."

"I'm terrible," Balin agreed, proving it by stealing a blanket to use as a cloak until he could find all his clothes. "Now on your feet and help me."

Cleaning up the mess they had made proved far less satisfying than making it in the first place. Balin washed with the last of the cold bathwater and dressed hurriedly. Dwalin scrubbed his hands and made do with pulling on his trousers before hoisting up the tub and carrying it downstairs. The bedding was in a shocking state, and there was nothing to be done but pile it all up in the middle of the counterpane, which Balin then knotted up like a sack for ease of washing without embarrassment on their hosts' part. He did the same for his own bundles and then swept up the ashes and crumbs from the hearth.

That done, Balin began packing. He gathered up his scattered belongings and then made certain that the silly thread that had started all this was safely tucked away in his pack. He was disinclined to take out his token until it unwove of its own accord, for all that anyone with sharp enough eyes back in the camp would spot it. Perhaps he would have it set in something sensible along with Dwalin's—gold and red together—as a fitting replacement for the gold and ruby ring he had traded for their holiday.

Heavy footsteps thumped back up the stairs, and Balin threw Dwalin's shirt at him when he entered.

"I've only found three of your socks," he said. "Dashed if I can find the other one, and you've been barefoot for days."

Dwalin pulled on his shirt with an unconcerned shrug. "Might have only packed three. I was in a hurry."

They made a thorough search of the room for any stray socks (none), oil flasks (one), and torn buttons (two). Then they propped the mattress up neatly against the wall, shouldered their packs and their weapons, and went quietly out of the house while their hosts still slept.

Sometime, without Balin's notice, the rain had finally stopped. The sky was still dim when they set their feet upon the road, but there were dark patches in between the clouds, and he could see the pink glow of the sun behind a thin wisp of grey. The ground was soft beneath his boots, but not quite muddy, and everything smelled promisingly of growth.

They walked westwards, leaving the Red Stag behind them. Dwalin ambled along easily, looking to be in good cheer, but with none of the haste he had shown on the way to the inn. Balin matched his strides, his body whispering to him with every step. He could feel the faint pull in his stomach and legs from muscles worked in ways that swinging a mace did not hone, and in the twinge of bites and bruises, and a faint ache where Dwalin had last had him. Small reminders, and ones he savoured.

There would have to be rules, he thought to himself, humming vaguely under his breath. If this were to go on, as it seemed it would, he and Dwalin would have to speak at length about privacy and discretion, and how to behave when they were abroad for hire together, and how to behave when they were abroad for hire apart. It would not be easy, that was for certain.

Dwalin veered in his path and bumped against him, nudging him out of his thoughts. Balin glanced over, startled, and then bumped him back with a smile. Yes, there were more lessons to learn, but perhaps they did not have to all be serious ones.

"Are those apple trees?" he asked, glancing some ways afield at a smudge of dark green and pink in the shadows down the hill.

Dwalin followed his gaze. "Looks like. Why?"

He winked at his brother. "Apple trees have special properties."

Namely, that they were very pleasant to sit under for a time, or perhaps to lie under, to watch the sun rise. And, of course, if one did so with a sweetheart, there was a very good chance one would get up again with clothing mussed and grass and apple blossoms in one's hair.

"Is that so?" Dwalin asked with interest, slinging an arm across his shoulder.

"Let me show you," Balin said.

The camp and their kin would do just fine without them for another hour or two, he decided as he stepped off the road and onto the dewy grass. He sauntered at his leisure towards the inviting trees, and where he led, Dwalin trustingly followed—with a promising glint in his eye that spoke to a thoroughly educated guess.


End file.
